MODERN HISTORY, 



FROM THE 



TIME OF LUTHER 



FALL OF NAPOLEON. 

FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 

BY 

john'lord, a.m., 

LECTURER ON HISTORY. 




\^ 



PHILADELPHIA: 
THOMAS, COWPERTIIWAIT & CO. 

New York, Geo. F. Cooledge it Dro. : — Boston, Plullips, Sampson <fc Co ; B. B. Mussey 

it Co. ; W. J. Reynolds & Co. :— Baltimore, Cushjng <fc Bro. :— Charleston, S. C, 

McCarter At Allen : — Louisville, Ky , Morton &. Griswold ; Beckwith & 

Morton: — St. Louis, Fisher &. Bennet; Win. D. SkiUman ; Amos 

Shultz: — Cincinnati, J. F. Dcsilver: — Nashville, Wm. T. Berry; 

Chas. W. Smith : — Memphis, C. C. Cleaves : — Lexington, 

C. S. Bodley & Co. : — Macon, Geo., J. M. Boardman. 



i 



?&k 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by 

JOHN LOUD, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED AT ME 
BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 



PREFACE. 



In preparing this History, I make no claim to original 
and profound investigations; but the arrangement, the 
style, and the sentiments, are my own. I have simply 
attempted to condense the great and varied subjects which 
are presented, so as to furnish a connected narrative of 
what is most vital in the history of the last three hundred 
years, avoiding both minute details and elaborate dis- 
quisitions. It has been my aim to write a book, which 
should be neither a chronological table nor a philosophical 
treatise, but a work adapted to the wants of young peo- 
ple in the various stages of education, and which, it is 
hoped, will also prove interesting to those of maturer age, 
who have not the leisure to read extensive works, and yet 
who wish to understand the connection of great events 
since the Protestant Reformation. Those characters, 
institutions, reforms, and agitations, which have had the 
greatest influence in advancing society, only have been 
described, and these not to the extent which will satisfy 
the learned or the curious. Dates and names, battles and 
sieges, have not been disregarded ; but more attention has 
been given to those ideas and to those men by whose 
influence and agency great changes have taken place. 



a 



PREFACE. 



In a work so limited, and yet so varied, marginal refer- 
ences to original authorities have not been deemed neces- 
sary ; but a list of standard and accessible authors is 
furnished, at the close of each chapter, which the young 
student, seeking more minute information, can easily 
consult. A continuation of this History to the present 
time might seem desirable ; but it would be difficult to 
condense the complicated events of the last thirty years 
into less than another volume. Instead of an unsatisfac- 
tory compend, especially of subjects concerning which 
there are great differences of opinion, and considerable 
warmth of feeling, useful tables of important events are 
furnished in the Appendix. I have only to add, that if 
I have succeeded in remedying, in some measure, the 
defects of those dry compendiums, which are used for 
want of living histories; if I have combined what is 
instructive with what is entertaining ; and especially if 
I shall impress the common mind, even to a feeble 
degree, with those great moral truths which history 
ought to teach, I shall feel that my agreeable labor is 
not without its reward. 

J. L. 

i 

Boston, October, 1849. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH 
CENTURIES, 
(pp. 1-9.) 
Revival of the Arts — Influence of Feudalism — Effects of Scholasticism — 
Ecclesiastical Corruptions — Papal Infallibility — The sale of Indul- 
gences — The Corruptions of the Church — Necessity for Reform. 



CHAPTER II. 

MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES, 
(pp. 10—29.) 
The Early Life of Luther — Luther's Early Religious Struggles — The 
Ninety-Five Propositions — Erasmus — Melancthon — Leo X. — The 
Leipsic Disputation — Principles of the Leipsic Disputation — The 
Rights of Private Judgment — Luther's Elements of Greatness — Ex- 
communication of Luther — The Diet of Worms — Imprisonment at 
Wartburg — Carlstadt — Thomas Munzer Ulric — Zwingle — Contro- 
versy between Luther and Zwingle — Diet of Augsburg — League of 
Smalcalde — Death and Character of Luther. 



CHAPTER m. 

THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. 
(pp. 30—44.) 
Charles V. — Spain and France in the Fifteenth Century — Wars between 
Charles and Francis. — Diet of Spires — Hostilities between Charles 
and Francis — African War — Council of Trent — Treachery of Mau- 
rice — Captivity of the Landgrave of Hesse — Heroism of Maurice — 
Misfortunes of Charles — Treaty of Passau — Character of Charles. 



VUl CONTENTS. 



< CHAPTER IV. 

HENRY VIII. 
(pp. 45—59.) 
Rise of Absolute Monarchy — Henry VIII. — Rise of Cardinal Wolsey — 
Magnificence of Henry VIII. — Anne Boleyn — Queen Catharine — 
Disgrace and Death of Wolsey — More — Cranmer — Cromwell — Quar- 
rel with the Pope ■ — Suppression of Monasteries — Execution of Anne 
Boleyn — Anne of Cleves — Catharine Howard — Last Days of Henry — 
Death of Henry. 

CHAPTER V. 

EDWARD VI. AND MARY, 
(pp. 60—68.) 
\ War with Scotland — Rebellions and Discontents — Rivalry of the great 
Nobles — Religious Reforms — Execution of Northumberland — Mar- 
riage of the Queen — Religious Persecution — Character of Mary — Ac- 
cession of Elizabeth. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ELIZABETH, 
(pp. 69-81.) 
Mary, Queen of Scots — John Knox — Marriage of Mary — Darnley — 
Bothwell — Civil War in Scotland — Captivity of Queen Mary — Execu- 
tion of Mary — Military Preparations of Philip II. — Spanish Armada — 
Irish Rebellion — The Earl of Essex — Character of Elizabeth — Im- 
provements made in the Reign of Elizabeth — Reflections. 

CHAPTER VII. 

FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY III., AND HENRY IV. 
(pp. 82—90.) 
Catharine de Medicis — Civil War in France — Massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew — Henry III. — Henry IV. — Edict of Nantes — Improvements 
during the Reign of Henry IV. — Peace Scheme of Henry IV. — Dcat v 
of Henry rV. — Prance at the Death of Henry IV. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PHILIP II. AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN, 
(pp. 91-96.) 
\ Bigotry of Philip II. — Revolt of the Netherlands — Revolt of the Moris- 
coes — Causes of the Decline of the Spanish Monarchy — The Increase 
of Gold and Silver — Decline of the Spanish Monarchy. 



CONTENTS. IX 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY, 
(pp. 97—107.) 
The Roman Power in the Seventeenth Century — Rise of the Jesuits — 
Rapid Spread of the Jesuits — Extraordinary Virtues of the older Jesu- 
its — The Constitution of the Jesuits — Degeneracy of the Jesuits — 
Evils in the Jesuit System — The Popes in the Seventeenth Century — 
Nepotism of the Popes — Rome in the Seventeenth Century. 

CHAPTER X. 

THIRTY YEARS' "WAR. 
(pp. 108—119.) 
Political Troubles after the Death of Luther — Diet of Augsburg — Com- 
mencement of the Thirty Years' War — The Emperor Frederic — Count 
Wallenstein — Character of Wallenstein — Gustavus Adolphus — Loss 
of Magdeburg — Wallenstein reinstated in Power — Death of Gusta- 
vus Adolphus — Assassination of Wallenstein — Treaty of Westphalia. 

CHAPTER XL 

ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 
(pp. 120—132.) 
Regency of Mary de Medicis — Rise of Cardinal de Richelieu — Suppres- 
sion of the Huguenots — The Depression of the great Nobles — Power 
of Richelieu — Character of Richelieu — Effects of Richelieu's Policy 

— Richelieu's Policy — Cardinal de Retz — Prince of Conde — Power 
of Mazarin — Death of Mazarin. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I. 
(pp. 133—180.) 
Accession of James I. — The Genius of the Reign of James — Conspiracy 
of Sir Walter Raleigh — Gunpowder Plot — Persecution of the Catho- 
lics — Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset — Greatness and Fall of Somerset 

— Duke of Buckingham — Lord Bacon — Trial and Execution of Ra- 
leigh — Encroachments of James — Quarrel between James and Parlia- 
ment — Death of James — The Struggle of Classes — Rise of Popular 
Power — Quarrel between the King and the Commons — The Counsel- 
lors of Charles — Death of Buckingham — Petition of Right — Earl of 
Strafford — John Hampden — Insurrection in Scotland — Long Parlia- 



CONTENTS. 






ment — Rebellion of Ireland — Flight of the King from London — Rise 
of the Puritans — Original Difficulties and Differences — Persecution 
during the Reign of Elizabeth — Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift — 
Persecution under James — Puritans in Exile — Troubles in Scotland — 
Peculiarities of Puritanism in England — Conflicts among the Puritans 
— Character of the Puritans — John Hampden — Oliver Cromwell — 
The King at Oxford — Cromwell after the Battle of Marston Moor — 
Enthusiasm of the Independents — Battle of Naseby — Success of the 
Parliamentary Army — Seizure of the King — Triumph of the Inde- 
pendents — Cromwell invades Scotland — Seizure of the King a second 
Time —Trial of the King. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, 
(pp. 181—191.) 
Storming of Drogheda and Wexford — Battle of "Worcester — Policy of 
Cromwell — The Rump Parliament — Dispersion of the Parliament — 
Cromwell assumes the Protectorship — The Dutch War — Cromwell 
rules without a Parliament — The Protectorate — Regal Government 
restored. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 
(pp. 192—210.) 
The Restoration — Great Public Rejoicings — Reaction to Revolutionary 
Principles — Excellences in Charles's Government — Failure of the 
Puritan Experiment — Repeal of the Triennial Bill — Secret Alliance 
with Louis XIV. — Venality and Sycophancy of Parliament — Restric- 
tions on the Press — Habeas Corpus Act — Titus Oates — Oates's Reve- 
lations — Penal Laws against Catholics — Persecution of Dissenters — 
Execution of Russell and Sydney — Manners and Customs of England 
— Milton — Dryden — Condition of the People of England. 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE REIGN OF JAMES II. 
(pp. 211—233.) 
Accession of James H. — Monmouth lands in England — Battle of Sedge- 
moor — Death of Monmouth — Brutality of Jeffreys — Persecution of 
the Dissenters — George Fox — Persecution of the Quakers — Despotic 
Power of James — Favor extended to Catholics — High Commission 
Court — Quarrel with the Universities — Magdalen College — Prosecu- 
tion of the Seven Bishops — Tyranny and infatuation of James — Or- 
ganized Opposition — William, Prince of Orange — Critical condition 
of James — Invasion of England by William — Flight of the King — 
Consummation of the E-evolution — Declaration of Right. 



CONTENTS. x i 



CHAPTER XVI. 

LOUIS XIV. 
(pp. 234—251.) 
The Power and Resources of Louis — His Habits and Pleasures — His 
Military Ambition — William, Prince of Orange — Second Invasion of 
Holland— Dutch War — Madame de Montespan — Madame de Mainte- 
non — League of Augsburg — Opposing Armies and Generals — War 
of the Spanish Succession — Duke of Marlborough — Battle of Blen- 
heim — Exertions and Necessities of Louis — Treaty of Utrecht — Last 
Days of Louis — His Character. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

WILLIAM AND MARY, 
(pp. 252—270.) 
Irish Rebellion — King James in Ireland — Freedom of the Press — Act 
of Settlement— Death of William HI. — Character of William— Sir 
Isaac Newton and John Locke — Anne — The Duke of Marlborough — 
Character of Marlborough — Whigs and Tories — Dr. Henry Sacheve- 
rell — Union of Scotland and England — Duke of Hamilton — Wits of 
Queen Anne's Reign — Swift — Pope — Bolingbroke — Gay — Prior — 
Writers of the Age of Queen Anne. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA, 
(pp. 271—289.) 
Early History of Russia — The Tartar Conquest — Accession of Peter the 
Great — Peter's Reforms — His War with Charles XII. — Charles XII. 
—Building of St. Petersburg — New War with Sweden — War with 
the Turks — Peter makes a second Tour — Elevation of Catharine — 
Early History of Sweden — Introduction of Christianity — Gustavus 
Vasa — Early Days of Charles XII. — Charles's Heroism — His Mis- 
fortunes — His Return to Sweden — His Death. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

GEORGE I., AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 

(pp. 290—309.) 
Accession of George I. — Sir Robert Walpole— The Pretender — Inva- 
sion of Scotland — The South Sea Bubble — The South Sea Company 
— Opposition of Walpole — Mania for Speculation — Bursting of the 
South Sea Bubble — Enlightened policy of Walpole — East India 



XU CONTENTS. 

Company — Resignation of Townsend — Unpopularity of Walpole — 
Decline of his power -4- John Wesley — Early life of Wesley — White - 
field — Institution of Wesley — Itinerancy — Great influence and pow- 
er of Wesley. 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES, 
(pp. 310—341.) 
Commercial Enterprise — Spanish Conquests and Settlements — Portu- 
guese Discoveries — Portuguese Settlements — Early English Enter- 
prise — Sir Walter Raleigh — London Company incorporated — Hard- 
ships of the Virginia Colony — New Charter of the London Company 

— Rapid Colonization — Indian Warfare — Governor Harvey — Arbi- 
trary Policy of Charles II. — Settlement of New England — Arrival of 
the Mayflower — Settlement of New Hampshire — Constitution of the 
Colony — Doctrines of the Puritans — Pequod War — Union of the 
New England Colonies — William Penn — Settlement of New York — 
Conquest of New Netherlands — Discovery of the St. Lawrence — 
Jesuit Missionaries — Prosperity of the English Colonies — French 
Encroachments — European Settlements in the East — French Settle- 
ments in India — La Bourdonnais and Dupleix — Clive's Victories — 
Conquest of India. 

CHAPTER XXL 

THE EEIGN OF GEOEGE II. 
(pp. 342—359.) 
The Pelhams — The Pretender Charles Edward Stuart — Surrender of 
Edinburgh — Success of the Pretender — The Retreat of the Pretender 

— Battle of Culloden — Latter Days of the Pretender — Maria Theresa 

— Capture of Louisburg — Great Colonial Contest — Character of the 
Duke of Newcastle — Unpopularity of the Pelhams — Rise of William 
Pitt — Brilliant Military Successes — Military Successes in America — 
Victories of Clive in India — Resignation of Pitt — Peace of Paris. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Loins xv. 

(pp. 360—379.) 

Regency of the Duke of Orleans — John Law — Mississippi Company — 

Popular Delusion — Fatal Effects of the Delusion — Administration 

of Cardinal Fleury — Cornelius Jansen — St. Cyran — Arnauld — Le 

Maitre — The Labors of the Port Royalists — Principles of Jansenism 

— Functions of the Parliament — The Bull Unigenitus — Madame de 
Pompadour — The Jesuits — Exposure of the Jesuits — Their Expul- 
sion from France — Suppression in Spain — Pope Clement XTV. — 
Death of Ganganelli — Death of Louis XV. 



CONTENTS. xiil 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

FREDERIC THE GREAT, 
(pp. 380—390.) 
Frederic William — Accession of Frederic the Great — The Seven Years' 
War — Battle of Rosbach — Battle of Lcuthen — Fall of Dresden — 
Reverses of Frederic — Continued Disasters — Exhaustion of Prussia 
by the War — Death of Frederic — Character of Frederic. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE II. 
(pp. 391—401.) 
The Germanic Constitution — The Hungarian War— The Emperor Jo- 
seph—Accession of Maria Theresa — She institutes Reforms — Suc- 
cessors of Peter the Great — Murder of Peter in. — Assassination of 
Ivan — Death of Catharine — Her Character. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

CALAMITIES OF POLAND. 

(pp. 402—408.) 

The Crown of Poland made elective — Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou 

— Sobieski assists the Emperor Leopold — The Liberum Veto — The 
Fall of Poland. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 
(pp. 409—415.) 
Saracenic Empire —Rise of the Turks — Turkish Conquerors — Progress 
of the Turks — Decline of Turkish Power — Turkish Institutions — 
Turkish Character. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

REIGN OF GEORGE III. TO ADMINISTRATION OF "WILLIAM PITT. 
( pp. 416—431. ) 
Military Successes in America — Prosecution of Wilkes — Churchill — 
Grafton's Administration — Popularity of Wilkes — Taxation of the 
Colonies — Indignation of the Colonies — Functions of the Parliament 

— The Stamp Act — Lord Chatham — Administration of Lord North 

Irish Discontents — Protestant Association — Lord George Gordon's 
Riots — Parliamentary Reforms. 



XIV CONTENTS. 



4 CHAPTER XXVIE. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 
(pp. 432—449.) 
Causes of the Revolution — Riots and Disturbances — Duty on Tea — 
Port of Boston closed — Meeting of Congress — ■ Speech of Burke — 
Battle of Bunker Hill — Death of Montgomery — Declaration of Ameri- 
can Independence — Commissioners sent to France — = Capture of Bur- 
goyne — Moral Effects of Burgoyne's Capture — Arrival of La Fayette 
— Evacuation of Philadelphia — The Treason of Arnold — Surrender 
of Lord Cornwallis — Resignation of Lord North. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT, 
(pp. 450—470.) 
William Pitt — Early Life of Pitt — Policy of Pitt — Difficulties -with 
Ireland — The United Irishmen — Union of England and Ireland — 
Condition of Ireland — Parliamentary Reform — Warren Hastings — 
War with Hyder Ah — Robbery of the Princesses of Oude — Prosecu- 
tion of Hastings — Edmund Burke— Charles James Fox — Richard 
Brinsley Sheridan — Bill for the Regulation of India — War -with Tip- 
poo Saib — Conquest of India — Consequences of the Conquest — War 
with France — Policy of Pitt. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 
(pp. 471—495.) 
Causes of the French Revolution — Helvetius — Voltaire — Rousseau — 
Diderot — General Influence of the Philosophers — Sufferings of the 
People — Degradation of the People — Derangement of Finances — 
Maurepas — Turgot — Malesherbes — Necker — '.Calonne — States Gen- 
eral — The Tiers Etat — Commotions — Rule of the People — National 
Federation — Flight of the King — The Girondists and the Jacobins — 
The National Convention — Marat — Danton — Robespierre — General 
War — Reign of Terror — Death of Robespierre — New Constitution — 
The Directory. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 
(pp. 496—526.) 
Character of Napoleon — Early Days of Napoleon — Early Services to the 
Republic — The Italian Campaign — Battle of St. Vincent — Conquest 



CONTENTS. XV 

of Venice by Napoleon — Invasion of Egypt — Siege of Acre — Re- 
verses of the French — Napoleon First Consul — Immense Military 
Preparations — The Reforms of Napoleon — The Code Napoleon — 
Meditated Invasion of England — Battle of Austerlitz — Battle of Jena 

— Napoleon aggrandizes France — Aggrandizement of Napoleon's 
Family — The Peninsular War — War in Spain — Invasion of Russia 

— Battle of Smolensko — Retreat of the French — Battles of Lutzen 
and Bautzen — Battle of Leipsic — The Allied Powers invade France 

— Peace of Paris — Napoleon escapes from Elba — Battle of Waterloo 

— Reflections on Napoleon's Fall. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON, 
(pp. 527—532.) 
Remarkable Men of Genius — Condition of Germany — Condition of 
other Powers — The United States of America. 



APPENDIX. 

Chronological Table, from the Fall of Napoleon, 533 

Prime Ministers of England, from the Accession of Henry VIII., . . 538 
Table of the Monarchs of Europe, during the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, 

and Eighteenth Centuries, 541 

Genealogical Table of the Royal Family of England 543 

Genealogical Table of the Boiirbons, 544 



MODERN HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 



STATE OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND 
SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 

The period at which this History commences, — the beginning 
of the sixteenth century, — when compared with the ages which 
had preceded it, since the fall of the Roman empire, was one 
of unprecedented brilliancy and activity. It was a period very 
fruitful in great men and great events, and, though stormy and 
turbulent, was favorable to experiments and reforms. The na- 
tions of Europe seem to have been suddenly aroused from a 
state of torpor and rest, and to have put forth new energies in 
every department of life. The material and the political, the 
moral and the social condition of society was subject to powerful 
agitations, and passed through important changes. 

Great discoveries and inventions had been made. The use of 
movable types, first ascribed to a German, of Mentz, by the 
name of Gutenberg, in 1441, and to Peter Schoeffer, in 1444, 
changed the whole system of book-making, and vastly increased 
the circulation of the Scriptures, the Greek and Latin classics, and 
all other valuable works, which, by the industry of the monkish 
copyist, had been preserved from the ravages of time and bar- 
barism. Gunpowder, whose explosive power had been perceived 
by Roger Bacon as early as 1280, though it was not used on the 
field of battle until 1346, had completely changed the art of war, 
and had greatly contributed to undermine the feudal system. 
1 



2 REVIVAL OF THE ARTS. [CHAP. I. 

The polarity of the magnet, also discovered in the middle ages, 
and not practically applied to the mariner's compass until 1403, 
had led to the greatest event of the fifteenth century — the dis- 
covery of America by Christopher Columbus, in 1492. The 
impulse given to commerce by this and other discoveries of 
unknown continents and oceans, by the Portuguese, the Span- 
iards, the Dutch, the English, and the French, cannot be here 
enlarged on. America revealed to the astonished European her 
riches in gold and silver ; and Indian spices, and silks, and 
drugs, were imported, through new channels, into all the coun- 
tries inhabited by the Teutonic races. Mercantile wealth, with 
all its refinements, acquired new importance in the eyes of 
the nations. The world opened towards the east and the west. 
The horizon of knowledge ' extended. Popular delusions were 
dispelled. Liberality of mind was acquired. The material pros- 
perity of the western nations was increased. Tastes became 
more refined, and social intercourse more cheerful. 

Art, in all its departments, was every where revived at this 
epoch. Houses became more comfortable, and churches more 
splendid. The utensils of husbandry and of cookery were im- 
proved. Linen and woollen manufactures supplanted the coarser 
fabrics of the dark ages. Music became more elaborate, and 
the present system of notation was adopted. The genius of 
the sculptor again gave life and beauty to a marble block, and 
painting was carried to greater perfection than by the ancient 
Greeks and Romans. Florence, Venice, Milan, and Rome be- 
came seats of various schools of this beautiful art, of which 
Michael Angelo, Correggio, the Carracci, and Raphael were the 
most celebrated masters, all of whom were distinguished for pe- 
culiar excellences, never since surpassed, or even equalled. 
The Flemish artists were scarcely behind the Italian ; and 
Rubens, of Antwerp, may well rank with Correggio and Titian. 
To Raphael, however, the world has, as yet, furnished no par- 
allel. 

The political and social structure of society changed. The 
crusades, long before, had given a shock to the political impor- 
tance of the feudal aristocracy, and reviving commerce and art 
had shaken the system to its foundations. The Fiendish weav- 



CHAP. I.] INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. 3 

ers had arisen, and a mercantile class had clamored for new 
privileges. In the struggle of classes, and in the misfortunes of 
nobles, monarchs had perceived the advantages they might gain, 
and fortunate circumstances enabled them to raise absolute 
thrones, and restore a central power, always so necessary to the 
cause of civilization. Feudalism had answered many useful 
ends in the dark ages. It had secured a reciprocity of duties 
between a lord and his vassal ; it had restored loyalty, truth, 
and fidelity among semi-barbarians ; it had favored the culti- 
vation of the soil ; it had raised up a hardy rural population ; it 
had promoted chivalry, and had introduced into Europe the mod- 
ern gentleman ; it had ennobled friendship, and spread the graces 
of urbanity and gentleness among rough and turbulent warriors. 
But it had, also, like all human institutions, become corrupt, and 
failed to answer the ends for which it was instituted. It had 
become an oppressive social despotism ; it had widened the dis- 
tinction between the noble and ignoble classes ; it had produced 
selfishness and arrogance among the nobles, and a mean and 
cringing sycophancy among the people ; it had perpetuated 
privileges, among the aristocracy, exceedingly unjust, and ruin- 
ous to the general welfare of society. It therefore fell before the 
advancing spirit of the age, and monarchies and republics were 
erected on its ruins. The people, as well as monarchs, had 
learned the secret of their power. They learned that, by com- 
bining their power, they could successfully resist their enemies. 
The principle of association was learned. Combinations of 
masses took place. Free cities were multiplied. A population 
of artificers, and small merchants, and free farmers arose. 
They discussed their privileges, and asserted their independence. 
Political liberty was born, and its invaluable blessings were con- 
ceived, if they were not realized. 

And the intellectual state of Europe received an impulse as 
marked and beneficent as the physical and social. The scho- 
lastic philosophy, with its dry and technical logic, its abstruse 
formulas, and its subtile refinements, ceased to satisfy the wants 
of the human mind, now craving light and absolute knowledge 
in all departments of science and philosophy. Like feudal- 
ism, it had once been useful ; but, like that institution, it had 



4 EFFECTS OF SCHOLASTICISM. [CHAP. I. 

also become corrupted, and an object of sarcasm and mockery. 
It had trained the European mind for the discoveries of the six- 
teenth century ; it had* raised up an inquisitive spirit, and had led 
to profound reflections on the existence of God, on his attributes 
and will, on the nature of the soul, on the faculties of the mind, 
and on the practical duties of life. But this philosophy be- 
came pedantic and cold ; covered, as with a funereal shade, the 
higher pursuits of life ; and diverted attention from what was 
practical and useful. That earnest spirit, which raised up Lu- 
ther and Bacon, demanded, of the great masters of thought, 
something which the people could understand, and something 
which would do them good. 

In poetry, the insipid and immoral songs of the Provencal 
bards gave place to the immortal productions of the great creators 
of the European languages. Dante led the way in Italy, and 
gave to the world the " Divine Comedy " — a masterpiece of 
human genius, which raised him to the rank of Homer and Virgil. 
Petrarch followed in his steps, and, if not as profound or original 
as Dante, yet is unequalled as an " enthusiastic songster of 
ideal love." He also gave a great impulse to civilization by his 
labors in collecting and collating manuscripts. Boccaccio also 
lent his aid in the revival of literature, and wrote a series of 
witty, though objectionable stories, from which the English 
Chaucer borrowed the notion of his " Canterbmy Tales." Chau- 
cer is the father of English poetry, and kindled a love of literature 
among his isolated countrymen ; and was one of the few men 
who, in the evening of his days, looked upon the world without 
austerity, and expressed himself with all the vivacity of youthful 
feeling. 

Such were some of the leading events and circumstances 
which gave a new life to European society, and created a desire 
for better days. All of these causes of improvement acted and 
reacted on each other in various ways, and prepared the way for 
new and great developments of action and passion. These new 
energies were, however, unfortunately checked by a combination 
of evils which had arisen in the dark ages, and which required to 
be subverted before any great progress could be reasonably ex- 
pected. These evils were most remarkable in the church itself, 



CHAP. I.] ECCLESIASTICAL CORRUPTIONS. 5 

and almost extinguished the light which Christ and his apostles 
had kindled. The church looked with an evil eye on many of the 
greatest improvements and agitations of the age, and attempted 
to suppress the spirit of insurrection which had arisen against the 
abuses and follies of past ages. Great ideas were ridiculed, and 
daring spirits were crushed. There were many good men in 
the church who saw and who lamented prevailing corruptions, 
but their voice was overwhelmed by the clamors of interested par- 
tisans, or silenced by the authority of the popes. The character 
of the popes themselves was not what was expected of the heads 
of the visible church, or what was frequently exhibited in those 
ignorant and superstitious times, when the papacy fulfilled, in the 
opinion of many enlightened Protestants, a benevolent mission. 
None had the disinterestedness of Gregory I., or the talents of 
Gregory VII. There had been a time when the great central 
spiritual monarchy of Rome had been exercised for the peace and 
tranquillity of Europe, when it was uniformly opposed to slavery 
and war, and when it was a mild and paternal government, which 
protected innocence and weakness, while it punished injustice and 
crime. The time was, when popes had been elevated for their 
piety and learning, and when they lived as saints and died as 
martyrs. But that time had passed. The Roman church did not 
keep up with the spirit or the wants of the age, and moreover did 
not reform itself from vices which had been overlooked in ages 
of ignorance and superstition. In the fifteenth century, many 
great abuses scandalized a body of men who should have been 
the lights of the world ; and the sacred pontiffs themselves set 
examples of unusual depravity. Julius II. marched at the head 
of armies. Alexander VI. secured his election by bribery, and 
reigned by extortion. He poisoned his own cardinals, and be- 
stowed on his son Caesar Borgia — an incarnated demon — the 
highest dignities and rewards. It was common for the popes to 
sell the highest offices in the church for money, to place boys on 
episcopal thrones, to absolve the most heinous and scandalous 
crimes for gold, to encourage the massacre of heretics, and to 
disgrace themselves by infamous vices. And a general laxity of 
morals existed among all orders of the clergy. They were igno- 
rant, debauched, and ambitious. The monks were exceedingly 
1* 



6 PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. [CHAP. I. 

numerous ; had ceased to be men of prayer and contemplation, 
as in the days of Benedict and Bernard ; and might be seen fre- 
quenting places of demoralizing excitement, devoted to pleasure, 
and enriched by inglorious gains. 

But the evils which the church encouraged were more danger- 
ous than the vices of its members. These evils were inherent in 
the papal system, and were hard to be subverted. There were 
corruptions of doctrine, and corruptions in the government and 
customs of the church. 

There generally prevailed, throughout Christendom, the belief 
in papal infallibility, which notion subverted the doctrines of the 
Bible, and placed its truths, at least, on a level with the authority 
of the schoolmen. It favored the various usurpations of the 
popes, and strengthened the bonds of spiritual despotism. 

The popes also claimed a control over secular princes, as well 
as the supremacy of the church. Hildebrand was content with 
riveting the chains of universal spiritual authority, the evil and 
absurdity of which cannot well be exaggerated ; but his more 
ambitious successors sought to reduce the kings of the earth to 
perfect vassalage, and, when in danger of having their monstrous 
usurpations torn from them, were ready to fill the world with 
discord and war. 

But the worldly popes of the fifteenth century also aspired to 
be temporal princes. They established the most elegant court 
in Europe ; they supported large armies ; they sought to restore 
the splendor of imperial Rome ; they became ambitious of found- 
ing great families ; they enriched their nephews and relations at 
the sacrifice of the best interests of their church ; they affected 
great state and dignity ; they built gorgeous palaces ; they orna- 
mented their capital with pictures and statues. 

The territories of Rome were, however, small. The lawful 
revenues of the popes were insufficient to gratify their extrava- 
gance and pomp. But money, nevertheless, they must have. In 
order to raise it, they resorted to extortion and corruption. They 
imposed taxes on Christendom, direct and indirect. These were 
felt as an intolerable burden ; but such was the superstition of 
the times, that they were successfully raised. But even these 
were insufficient to gratify papal avarice and rapacity. They 



CHAP. I.] THE SALE OF INDULGENCES. 7 

then resorted, in their necessities, to the meanest acts, imposed on 
the simplicity of their subjects, and finally adopted the most 
infamous custom which ever disgraced the world. 

They pardoned sins for money — granted sales of indulgences 
for crime. A regular scale for absolution was graded. A proc- 
lamation was made every fifty, and finally every twenty-five 
years, of a year of jubilee, when plenary remission of all sin was 
promised to those who should make a pilgrimage to Rome. And 
so great was the influx of strangers, and consequently of wealth, 
to Rome, that, on one occasion, it was collected into piles by 
rakes. It is computed that two hundred thousand deluded per- 
sons visited the city in a single month. But the vast sums 
they brought to Rome, and the still greater sums which were 
obtained by the sale of indulgences, and by various taxations, 
were all squandered in ornamenting the city, and in supporting a 
luxurious court, profligate cardinals, and superfluous ministers 
of a corrupted religion. Then was erected the splendid church 
of St. Peter, more after the style of Grecian temples, than after 
the model of the Gothic cathedrals of York and Cologne. Glorious 
was that monument of reviving art ; wonderful was its lofty 
dome; but the vast sums required to build it opened the eyes 
of Christendom to the extravagance and presumption of the 
popes ; and this splendid trophy of their glory also became the 
emblem of their broken power. Their palaces and temples 
made an imposing show, but detracted from their real strength, 
which consisted in the affections of their spiritual subjects. Their 
outward grandeur, like the mechanical agencies which kings em- 
ploy, was but a poor substitute for the invisible power of love, : — 
in all ages, and among all people, " that cheap defence '.' which 
supports thrones and kingdoms. 

Another great evil was, the prevalence of an idolatrous spirit. 
In the churches and chapels, and even in private families, were 
innumerable images of saints, pictures of the Virgin, relics, cru- 
cifixes, &c, designed at first to kindle a spirit of devotion among 
the rude and uneducated, but gradually becoming objects of real 
adoration. Intercessions were supposed to be made by the Virgin 
Mary, and by favorite saints, more efficacious with Deity than the 
penitence and prayers of the erring and sinful themselves. The 



8 THE CORRUPTIONS OF THE CHURCH. [CHAP. I. 

influence of this veneration for martyrs and saints was degrading 
to the mind, and became a very lucrative source of profit to the 
priests, who peddled the bones and relics of saints as they did 
indulgences, and who invented innumerable lies to attest the gen- 
uineness and antiquity of the objects they sold, all of which were 
parts of the great system of fraud and avarice which the church 
permitted. 

Again ; the public worship of God was in a language the people 
could not understand, but rendered impressive by the gorgeous 
dresses of the priests, and the magnificence of the altar, and the 
images and vessels of silver and gold, reflecting their splendor, 
by the light Of wax candles, on the sombre pillars, roofs, and 
windows of the Gothic church, and the effect heightened by 
exciting music, and other appeals to the taste or imagination, 
rather than to the reason and the heart. The sermons of the 
clergy were frivolous, and ill adapted to the spiritual wants of 
the people. " Men went to the Vatican," says the learned and 
philosophical Ranke, " not to pray, but to contemplate the Belvi- 
dere Apollo. They disgraced the most solemn festivals by open 
profanations. The clergy, in their services, sought the means 
of exciting laughter. One would mock the cuckoo, and another 
recite indecent stories about St. Peter." Luther, when he visited 
Italy, was extremely shocked at the infidel spirit which prevailed 
among the clergy, who were hostile to the circulation of the 
Scriptures, and who encouraged persecutions and inquisitions. 
This was the age when the dreadful tribunal of the Inquisition 
flourished, although its chief enormities were perpetrated in Spain 
and Portugal. It never had an existence in England, and but 
little influence in France and Germany. But if the Church did 
not resort, in all countries, to that dread tribunal which subjected 
youth, beauty, and innocence to the inquisitorial vengeance of 
narrow-minded Dominican monks, still she was hostile to free 
inquiry, and to all efforts made to emancipate the reason of men. 

The spirit of religious persecution, which inflamed the Roman 
Church to punish all dissenters from the doctrine and abuses she 
promulgated, can never be questioned. The Waldenses and 
Albigenses had suffered, in darker times, almost incredible hard- 
ships and miseries — had been almost annihilated by the dreadful 



CHAP. I.] NECESSITY FOR REFORM. 9 

crusade which was carried on against them, so that two hundred 
thousand had perished for supposed heresy. But reference is not 
now made to this wholesale massacre, but to those instances of 
individual persecution which showed the extreme jealousy and 
hatred of Rome of all new opinions. John Huss and Jerome 
of Prague were publicly burned for attempting to reform the 
church, and even Savonarola, who did not deny the authority of 
the popes, was condemned to the flames for denouncing the vices 
of his age, rather than the evils of the church. 

These multiplied evils, which checked the spirit of improve- 
ment, called loudly for reform. Councils were assembled for the 
purpose ; but councils supported, rather than diminished, the evils 
of which even princes complained. The reform was not destined 
to come from dignitaries in the church or state ; not from bishops, 
nor philosophers, nor kings, but from an obscure teacher of 
divinity in a German university, whom the genius of a reviving 
and awakened age had summoned into the field of revolutionary 
warfare. It was reserved for Martin Luther to commence the 
fh'st successful rebellion against the despotism of Rome, and to 
give the greatest impulse to freedom of thought, and a general 
spirit of reform, which ten centuries had seen. 

The most prominent event in modern times is unquestionably 
the Protestant Reformation, and it was by far the most momen- 
tous in its results. It gave rise, directly or indirectly, to the great 
wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as to 
those rival sects which agitated the theological world. It is con- 
nected with the enterprises of great monarchs, with the struggle 
of the Huguenots and Puritans, with the diffusion of knowledge, 
and with the progress of civil and religious liberty in Europe. 
An event, therefore, of such interest and magnitude, may well be 
adopted as a starting point in modern history, and will, accord- 
ingly, be the first subject of especial notice. History is ever most 
impressive and philosophical when great changes and revolutions 
are traced to the agency of great spiritual ideas. Moreover, 
modern history is so complicated, that it is difficult to unravel it, 
except by tracing the agency of great causes, rather than by 
detailing the fortunes of kings and nobles. 



10 THE EARLY LIFE OF LUTHER. [CHAP. II. 

CHAPTER II. 

MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 

Martin Luther was bom the 10th of November, 1483, at Eis- 
leben, in Saxony. His father was a miner, of Mansfield, and his 
ancestors were peasants, who lived near the summit of the Thu- 
ringian Forest. His early years were spent at Mansfield, in ex- 
treme poverty, and he earned his bread by singing hymns before 
the houses of the village. At the age of fifteen, he went to 
Eisenach, to a high school, and at eighteen entered the university 
of Erfurt, where he made considerable progress in the sciences 
then usually taught, which, however, were confined chiefly to the 
scholastic philosophy. He did not know either Greek or Hebrew, 
but read the Bible in Latin. In 1505, he took his degree of 
bachelor of arts, and, shortly after, his religious struggles com- 
menced. He had witnessed a fearful tempest, which alarmed 
him, while on a visit at his father's house, and he was also much 
depressed by the death of an intimate friend. In that age, the 
serious and the melancholy generally sought monastic retreats, 
and Luther, thirsty after divine knowledge, and anxious to save 
his soul, resolved to forsake the world, and become a monk. He 
entered an Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, soon after obtaining 
his first degree. But the duties and studies of monastic life did 
not give his troubled soul the repose he sought. He submitted to 
all the irksome labors which the monks imposed ; he studied the 
fathers and the schoolmen ; he practised the most painful austeri- 
ties, and fastings, and self-lacerations : still he was troubled with 
religious fears. His brethren encouraged his good works, but his 
perplexities and doubts remained. In this state of mind, he was 
found by Staupitz, vicar-general of the order, who was visiting Er- 
furt, in his tour of inspection, with a view to correct the bad morals 
of the monasteries. He sympathized with Luther in his religious 
feelings, treated him with great kindness, and recommended the 
reading of the Scriptures, and also the works of St. Augustine, 



CHAP. II.] THE EARLY LIFE OF LUTHER. 11 

whose theological views he himself had embraced. Although St. 
Augustine was a great oracle in the Roman church, still, his 
doctrines pertaining to personal salvation differed in spirit from 
those which were encouraged by the Roman Catholic divines 
generally, who attached less importance to justification by faith 
than did the venerated bishop of Hyppo. In that age of abuses, 
great importance was attached, by the church, to austerities, 
penance, and absolutions for money. But Luther, deeply imbued 
with the spirit of Augustine, at length found light, and repose, 
and joy, in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This 
became more and more the idea of his life, especially at this time. 
The firmness of his convictions on this point became extraordi- 
nary, and his spiritual gladness now equalled his former de- 
pression and anxiety. He was soon to find a sphere for the 
development of his views. 

Luther was consecrated as a priest in 1507, and in 1508 he 
was invited by Frederic, Elector of Saxony, to become a professor 
in the new university which he had established at Wittemberg. 
He was now twenty-five years of age, and the fact, that he should 
have been selected, at that early age, to teach dialectics, is a 
strong argument in favor of his attainments and genius. 

He now began to apply himself to the study of the Greek and 
Hebrew, and delivered lectures on biblical theology ; and his novel 
method, and great enthusiasm, attracted a crowd of students. 
But his sermons were more striking even than his lectures, and 
he was invited, by the council of Wittemberg, to be the preacher 
for the city. His eloquence, his learning, and his zeal, now 
attracted considerable attention, and the elector himself visited 
Wittemberg to hear him preach. 

In 1512, he was sent on an embassy to Rome, and, while in 
Italy, obtained useful knowledge of the actual state of the 
hierarchy, and of morals and religion. Julius II., a warlike 
pontiff, sat on the throne of St. Peter ; and the " Eternal City " 
was the scene of folly, dissipation, and clerical extortion. Luther 
returned to Germany completely disgusted with eveiy thing he 
had seen — the levity and frivolity of the clergy, and the igno- 
rance and vices of the people. He was too earnest in his religious 
views and feelings to take much interest in the works of art, or 



12 luther's early religious struggles. [chap. ii. 

the pleasures, which occupied the attention of the Italians ; and the 
impression of the general iniquity and corruption of Rome never 
passed away, and probably gave a new direction to his thoughts. 

On his return, in 1512, he was made doctor of divinity, then a 
great distinction, and renewed his lectures in the university with 
great ardor. ; He gave a new impulse to the studies, and a new 
form to the opinions of both professors and students. Lupinus 
and Carlstadt, his colleagues, were converts to his views. All 
within his sphere were controlled by his commanding genius, 
and extraordinary force of character. He commenced war upon 
the schoolmen, and was peculiarly hostile to Thomas Aquinas, 
whom he accused of Pelagianism. He also attacked Aristotle, 
the great idol of the schools, and overwhelmed scholasticism with 
sarcasm and mockery. 

Such was the state of things when the preachers of indulgences, 
whom Leo X. had encouraged, in order to raise money for St. 
Peter's Church, arrived in the country round the Elbe. They 
had already spread over Germany, Switzerland, and France. 
Their luxury and extravagance were only equalled by their pre- 
sumption and insolence. All sorts of crime were pardoned by 
these people for money. Among the most remarkable of these 
religious swindlers and pedlers was Tetzel. He was a friar of 
the Dominicans, apostolical commissioner, inquisitor, and bachelor 
of theology. He united profligate morals with great pretensions 
to sanctity ; was somewhat eloquent, so far as a sonorous voice 
was concerned, and was very bold and haughty, as vulgar men, 
raised to eminence and power, are apt to be. But his peculiarity 
consisted in the audacity of his pretensions, and his readiness 
in inventing stories to please the people, ever captivated by 
rhetoric and anecdote. " Indulgences," said he, " are the most 
precious and sublime of God's gifts." " I would not exchange - 
my privileges for those of St. Peter in heaven ; for I have saved 
more souls, with my indulgences, than he, with his sermons." 
" There is no sin so great that the indulgence cannot remit it : 
even repentance is not necessary : indulgences save not the 
living alone, — they save the dead." " The very moment that the 
money clinks against the bottom of this chest, the soul escapes 
from purgatory, and flies to heaven." " And do you know why 



CHAP. II.] THE NINETY-FIVE PROPOSITIONS. 13 

our Lord distributes so rich a grace ? The dilapidated Church of 
St. Peter and St. Paul is to be restored, which contains the bodies 
of those holy apostles, and which are now trodden, dishonored, 
and polluted." 

Tetzel found but few sufficiently enlightened to resist him, and 
he obtained great sums from the credulous people. This abom- 
ination excited Luther's intensest detestation ; and he accordingly 
wrote ninety-five propositions, and nailed them, in 1517, to the gates 
of the church, in which he denounced the traffic in indulgences, 
and traced the doctrine of absolution to the usurped power of the 
pope. He denied the value of his absolution, and maintained 
that the divine favor would only be granted on the condition of 
repentance and faith. 

In these celebrated propositions, he struck at the root of scho- 
lastic absurdities, and also of papal pretensions. The spirit 
which they breathed was bold, intrepid, and magnanimous. They 
electrified Germany, and gave a shock to the whole papal edifice. 
They had both a religious and a political bearing ; religious, in 
reference to the grounds of justification, and political, in opening 
men's eyes to the unjust and ruinous extortions of Rome. 

Among those who perceived with great clearness the political 
tendency of these propositions, and rejoiced in it, was the elector 
of Saxony himself, the most powerful prince of the empire, 
who had long been vexed, in view of the vast sums which had 
been drained from his subjects. He also lamented the corruptions 
of the church, and probably sympathized with the theological 
opinions of Luther. He accordingly protected the bold professor, 
although he did not openly encourage him, or form an alliance 
with him. He let things take their course. Well did Frederic 
deserve the epithet of Wise. 

There was another great man who rejoiced in the appearance 
of Luther's theses ; and this was Erasmus, the greatest scholar of 
his age, the autocrat of letters, and, at that time, living in Basle. 
He was born in Rotterdam, in 1467, of poor parents, but early 
attracted notice for his attainments, and early emancipated him- 
self from the trammels of scholasticism, which he hated and 
despised as cordially as Luther himself. He also attacked, with 
elegant sarcasm, the absurdities of his age, both in literature and 
2 



14 ERASMUS — B1ELANCTH0N. [CHAP. II. 

morals. He denounced the sins and follies of the monks, and 
spoke of the necessity of reform. But his distinguishing excel- 
lence was his literary talent and taste. He was a great Greek 
scholar, and published a critical edition of the Testament, which 
he accompanied with a Latin translation. In this, he rendered 
great service to the reformers, especially to Luther. His fasci- 
nating style and extensive erudition gave him great literary fame. 
But he was timid, conservative, and vain ; and sought to be pop- 
ular, except among the monks, whom he uniformly ridiculed. 
One doctor hated him so cordially, that he had his picture hung 
up in his study, that he might spit in his face as often as he 
pleased. So far as Luther opposed monkery and despotism, his 
sympathies were with him. But he did not desire a radical 
reformation, as Luther did, and always shunned danger and 
obloquy. He dreaded an insurrection among the people, and 
any thing which looked either revolutionary or fanatical. Luther, 
therefore, much as he was gratified by his favor at first, soon 
learned to distrust him ; and finally these two great men were 
unfriendly to each other. 

Melancthon was too prominent an actor in the great drama 
about to be performed, to be omitted in this sketch of great men 
who were on the side of reform. He was born in 1497, and was, 
therefore, fourteen years younger than Luther. He was educated 
under the auspices of the celebrated Greek scholar Beuchlin, 
who was also a relative. At twelve, he was sent to the university 
of Heidelberg ; at fourteen, was made bachelor of arts ; and at 
seventeen, doctor of philosophy. He began to lecture publicly 
at the age of seventeen ; and, for his extraordinary attainments, 
was invited to Wittemberg, as professor of ancient languages, at 
the age of twenty-one. He arrived there in 1518, and immedi- 
ately fell under the influence of Luther, who, however, acknowl- 
edged his classical attainments. He was considered a prodigy ; 
was remarkably young looking, and so boyish, that the grave 
professors conceived but little hope of him at first. But, when he 
delivered his inaugural oration in Latin, all were astonished ; and 
their prejudices were removed. Luther himself was enthusiastic 
in his praises, and a friendship commenced between them, which 
was never weakened by a quarrel. The mildness and gentle- 



CHAP. II.] MELANCTHON LEO X. 15 

ness of Philip Melancthon strongly contrasted with the boldness, 
energy, and tumultuous passions of Luther. The former was the 
more learned and elegant ; the latter was the superior genius — a 
genius for commanding men, and guiding great enterprises. 

But there was another great personage, who now viewed the 
movement of Luther with any thing but indifference ; and this was 
Leo X., the reigning pope when the theses were published. He 
belonged to the illustrious family of the Medici, and was chosen 
cardinal at the age of thirteen. He was the most elegant and 
accomplished of all the popes, patronized art and literature, and 
ornamented his capital with palaces, churches, and statues. But, 
with his sympathy for intellectual excellence, he was prodigal, 
luxurious, and worldly. Indeed, his spirit was almost infidel. He 
was more ambitious for temporal than spiritual power ; and, when 
he commenced his reign, the papal possessions were more exten- 
sive and flourishing, than at any previous period. His leading 
error was, his recklessness in the imposition of taxes, even on the 
clergy themselves, by which he lost their confidence and regard. 
With a very fine mind, he was, nevertheless, quite unfitted for his 
station and his times. 

Thus far, he had allowed the outcry which Luther had raised 
against indulgences to take its course, and even disregarded 
the theses, which he supposed originated in a monkish squabble 
Butthe Emperor Maximilian was alarmed, and wrote to the pope an 
account of Luther's differences with Tetzel. Frederic of Saxony 
had also written to his holiness, to palliate the conduct of Luther. 

When such powerful princes became interested, Leo was 
startled. He summoned Luther to Rome, to be tried by Prierias. 
Luther, not daring to refuse, and not willing to obey, wrote to his 
friend Spalatin to use his influence with the elector to have his 
cause tried in Germany ; and the pope, willing to please Frederic, 
appointed De Vio, his legate, to investigate the matter. Luther 
accordingly set out for Augsburg, in obedience to the summons of 
De Vio, although dissuaded by many of his friends. He had 
several interviews with the legate, by whom he was treated with 
courtesy and urbanity, and by whom he was dissuaded from his 
present courses. But all the persuasion and argument of the car- 
dinal legate were without effect on the mind of Luther, whose 



16 THE LEIPSIC DISPUTATION. [CHAP. II. 

convictions were not to be put aside by either kindness or craft. 
De Vio had hoped that he could induce Luther to retract ; but, 
when he found him fixed in his resolutions, he changed his tone, 
and resorted to threats. Luther then made up his mind to leave 
Augsburg ; and, appealing to the decision of the sovereign pontiff, 
whose authority he had not yet openly defied, he fled from the 
city, and returned to Wittemberg, being countenanced by the 
elector, to whom he also addressed letters. His life was safe so 
long as Frederic protected him. 

The next event in the progress of Luther was the Leipsic dis- 
putation, June, 1519. The pope seemed willing to make one more 
effort to convince Luther, before he proceeded to more violent 
courses. There was then at his court a noble Saxon, Charles 
Miltitz, whose talents and insinuating address secured him the high 
office of chamberlain to the pope. He accordingly was sent into 
his native country, with the dignity of legate, to remove the diffi- 
culties which De Vio had attempted. He tried persuasion and 
flattery, and treated the reformer with great civility. But Luther 
still persisted in refusing to retract, and the matter was referred to 
the elector archbishop of Treves. 

While the controversy was pending, Dr. Eck, of the univer- 
sity of Ingolstadt, a man of great scholastic ingenuity and attain- 
ment, and proud of the prizes of eight universities, challenged the 
professors of Wittemberg to a public controversy on Grace and 
Free Will. He regarded a disputation with the eye of a practised 
fencer, and sought the means of extending his fame over North 
Germany. Leipsic was the appointed arena, and thither resorted 
the noble and the learned of Saxony. Eck was among the 
first who arrived, and, soon after, came Carlstadt, Luther, and 
Melancthon. 

The place for the combat was a hall in the royal palace of 
Duke George, cousin to the elector Frederic, which was ar- 
ranged and ornamented with great care, and which was honored 
by the presence of the duke, and of the chief divines and nobles of 
Northern Germany. Carlstadt opened the debate, which did not 
excite much interest until Luther's turn came, the antagonist whom 
Eck was most desirous to meet, and whose rising fame he hoped 
to crush by a brilliant victory. Ranke thus describes Luther's 



CHAP. II.] PRINCIPLES OF THE LEIPSIC DISPUTATION. 17 

person at this time. " He was of the middle size, and so thin as 
to be mere skin and bone. He possessed neither the thundering 
voice, nor the ready memory, nor the skill and dexterity, of his 
distinguished antagonist. But he stood in the prime of manhood 
and in the fulness of his strength. His voice was melodious and 
clear ; he was perfectly versed in the Bible, and its aptest sen- 
tences presented themselves unbidden to his mind ; above all, he 
inspired an irresistible conviction that he sought the truth. He 
was always cheerful at home, and a joyous, jocose companion at 
table ; he even, on this grave occasion, ascended the platform with 
a nosegay in his hand ; but, when there, he displayed the intrepid 
and self-forgetting earnestness arising from the depth of a convic- 
tion, until how, unfathomed, even by himself. He drew forth new 
thoughts, and placed them in the fire of the battle, with a determina- 
tion that knew no fear and no personal regard. His features bore 
the traces of the storms that had passed over his soul, and of the 
courage with which he was prepared to encounter those which yet 
awaited him. His whole aspect evinced profound thought, joyous- 
ness of temper, and confidence in the future. The battle imme- 
diately commenced on the question of the authority of the papacy, 
which, at once intelligible and important, riveted universal atten- 
tion." Eck, with great erudition and masterly logic, supported 
the claim of the pope, from the decrees of councils, the opinions 
of scholastics, and even from those celebrated words of Christ to 
Peter — "Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my 
church, 1 ' &c. Luther took higher and bolder ground, denied the 
infallibility of councils, and appealed to Scripture as the ultimate 
authority. Eck had probably the advantage over his antagonist, 
so far as dialectics were concerned, being a more able disputant ; 
but Luther set at defiance mere scholastic logic, and appealed to 
an authority which dialectics could not reach. The victoiy was 
claimed by both parties ; but the result was, that Luther no longer 
acknowledged the authority of the Roman church, and acknowl- 
edged none but the Scriptures. 

The Leipsic disputation was the grand intellectual contest of the 
Reformation, and developed its great idea — the only great prin- 
ciple, around which all sects and parties among the Protestants 
rally. This is the idea, that the Scriptures are the only ultimate 
2* 



18 THE EIGHTS OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. [CHAP. II. 

grounds of authority in religion, and that, moreover, every man 
has a right to interpret them for himself. The rights of private 
judgment — that religion is a matter between the individual soul 
and God, and that every man is answerable to his own conscience 
alone how he interprets Scripture — these constitute the great 
Protestant platform. Different sects have different views respect- 
ing justification, but all profess to trace them to the Scriptures. 
Luther's views were similar to those of St. Augustine — that " man 
could be justified by faith alone," which was his great theological 
doctrine — a doctrine adopted by many who never left the com- 
munion of the Church of Rome, before and since his day, and a 
doctrine which characterized the early reformers, Zwingle, Cal- 
vin, Knox, Cranmer, and the Puritans generally. It is as absurd 
to say that Luther's animating principle in religion was not this 
doctrine, as it is unphilosophical to make the reformation consist 
merely in its recognition. After Luther's convictions were settled 
on this point, and he had generally and openly declared them, the 
main contest of his life was against the papacy, which he viewed 
as the predicted Antichrist — the " scarlet mother of abominations." 
It is not the object of the writer of this Histoiy to defend or oppose 
Luther's views, or argue any cause whatever, but simply to place 
facts in their true light, which is, to state them candidly. 

Although the Leipsic controversy brought out the great principle 
of the Reformation, Luther's views, both respecting the true doc- 
trines and polity of the church, were not, on all points, yet devel- 
oped, and were only gradually unfolded, as he gained knowledge 
and light It was no trifling matter, even to deny the supremacy 
of the Roman church in matters of faith. He was thus placed in 
the position of Huss and Jerome, and other reformers, who had 
been destroyed, with scarcely an exception. He thus was brought 
in direct conflict with the pope, with the great dignitaries of the 
church, with the universities, and with the whole scholastic litera- 
ture. He had to expect the violent opposition and vengeance of 
the pope, of the monks, of the great ecclesiastical dignitaries, of 
the most distinguished scholars, and of those secular princes who 
were friendly to Rome. He had none to protect him but a prince 
of the empire, powerful, indeed, and wise, but old and wavering. 
There were but few to uphold and defend him — the satirical 



chap, ii.] luther's elements of greatness. 19 

Erasmus, who was called a second Lucian, the feeble Staupitz, 
the fanatical Carlstadt, and the inexperienced Melancthon. The 
worldly-minded, the learned, the powerful, and the conservative 
classes were his natural enemies. But he had reason and Scripture 
on his side, and he appealed to their great and final verdict. He 
had singular faith in the power of truth, and the gracious protec- 
tion of God Almighty. Reposing on the greatness of his cause, 
and the providence of the omnipotent Protector, he was ready to 
defy all the arts, and theories, and malice of man. His weapon 
was truth. For truth he fought, and for truth he was ready to die. 
The sophistries of the schools he despised ; they had distorted and 
mystified the truth. And he knew them well, for he had been 
trained in the severest dialectics of his time, and, though he de- 
spised them, he knew how to use them. The simple word of God, 
directed to the reason and conscience of men, seemed alone worthy 
of his regard. 

But, beside Scripture and unperverted reason, he had another 
element of power. He was master of the sympathies and pas- 
sions of the people. His father was a toiling miner. His grand- 
father was a peasant. He had been trained to penury ; he had 
associated with the poor ; he was a man of the people ; he was 
their natural friend. He saw and lamented their burdens, and 
rose up for their deliverance. And the people distinguished their 
true friend, from their false friends. They saw the sincerity, 
earnestness, and labors of the new apostle of liberty, and believed 
in him, and made an idol of him. They would protect him, v and 
honor him, and obey him, and believe what he taught them, for he 
was their friend, whom God had raised up to take off their bur- 
dens, and point a way to heaven, without the intercession of 
priests, or indulgences, or penance. Their friend was to expose 
the corruptions of the clergy, and to give battle to the great arch 
enemy who built St. Peter's Church from their hard-earned pit- 
tances. A spirit from heaven enlightened those to whom Luther 
preached, and they rallied around his standard, and swore never 
to separate, until the great enemies of the poor and the oppressed 
were rendered powerless. And their sympathies were needed, and 
best services, too ; for the great man of the age — the incarnated 
spirit of liberty — was in danger. 



20 EXCOMMUNICATION OF LUTHER. [CHAP. II. 

The pope, hitherto mild, persuasive, and undecided, now arose in 
the majesty of his mighty name, and, as the successor of St. Peter, 
hurled those weapons which had been thunderbolts in the hands 
of the Gregories and the Innocents. From his papal throne, and 
with all the solemnity of God's appointed vicegerent, he de- 
nounced the daring monk of Wittemberg, and sentenced him 
to the wrath of God, and to the penalty of eternal fire. Luther 
was excommunicated by a papal bull, and his writings were 
condemned as heretical and damnable. 

This was a dreadful sentence. Few had ever resisted it suc- 
cessfully, even monarchs themselves. Excommunication was 
still a fearful weapon, and used only in desperate circumstances. 
It was used only as the last resort ; for frequency would de- 
stroy its power. In the middle ages, this weapon was omnipo- 
tent ; and the middle ages had but just passed away. No one 
could stand before that awful anathema which consigned him to 
the wrath of incensed and implacable Deity. Much as some pro- 
fessed to despise the sentence, still, when inflicted, it could not 
be borne, especially if accompanied with an interdict. Children 
were left unburied. The churches were closed. The rites of 
religion were suspended. A funereal shade was spread over 
society. The fears of hell haunted every imagination. No 
reason was strong enough to resist the sentence. No arm was 
sufficiently powerful to remove the curse. It hung over a guilty 
land. It doomed the unhappy offender, who was cursed, wherever 
he went, and in whatever work he was engaged. 

But Luther was strong enough to resist it, and to despise it. 
He saw it was an imposition, which only barbarous and ignorant 
ages had permitted. Moreover, he perceived that there was now 
no alternative but victory or death ; that, in the great contest in 
which he was engaged, retreat was infamy. Nor did he wish to 
retreat. He was fighting for oppressed humanity, and death 
even, in such a cause, was glory. He understood fully the nature 
and the consequence of the struggle. He perceived the greatness 
of the odds against him, in a worldly point of view. No man 
but a Luther would have been equal to it ; no man, before him, 
ever had successfully rebelled against the pope. It is only in view 
of this circumstance, that his intrepidity can be appreciated. 



CHAP. II.] THE DIET OF WORMS. 21 

What did the Saxon monk do, when the papal bull was pub- 
lished ? He assembled the professors and students of the univer- 
sity, declared his solemn protest against the pope as Antichrist, 
and marched in procession to the gates of the Castle of Wittem- 
berg, and there made a bonfire, and cast into it the bull which 
condemned him, the canon law, and some writings of the school- 
men, and then reentered the city, breathing defiance against the 
whole power of the pope, glowing in the consciousness that the 
battle had commenced, to last as long as life, and perfectly secure 
that the victory would finally be on the side of truth. This was 
in 1520, on the 10th of December. 

The attention of the whole nation was necessarily drawn to this 
open resistance ; and the sympathy of the free thinking, the 
earnest, and the religious, was expressed for him. Never was 
popular interest more absorbing, in respect to his opinions, his 
fortunes, and his fate. The spirit of innovation became conta- 
gious, and pervaded the German mind. It demanded the serious 
attention of the emperor himself. 

A great Diet of the empire was convened at Worms, and 
thither Luther was summoned by the temporal power. He had 
a safe-conduct, which even so powerful a prince as Charles V. 
durst not violate. In April, 1521, the reformer appeared before 
the collected dignitaries of the German empire, both spiritual and 
temporal, and was called upon to recant his opinions as heretical in 
the eyes of the church, and dangerous to the peace of the empire. 
Before the most august assembly in the world, without a trace 
of embarrassment, he made his defence, and refused to recant. 
" Unless," said he, " my errors can be demonstrated by texts from 
Scripture, I will not and cannot recant ; for it is not safe for a 
man to go against his conscience. Here I am. I can do no 
otherwise. God help me ! Amen." 

This declaration satisfied his friends, though it did not satisfy the 
members of the diet. Luther was permitted to retire. He had 
gained the confidence of the nation. From that time, he was its 
idol, and the acknowledged leader of the greatest insurrection of 
human intelligence which modern times have seen. The great 
principles of the reformation were declared. The great hero of 
the Reformation had planted his cause upon a rock. And yet his 



22 IMPRISONMENT AT WARTBURG. [CHAP. II. 

labors had but just commenced. Henceforth, his life was toil and 
vexation. New difficulties continually arose. New questions 
had to be continually settled. Luther, by his letters, was every 
where. He commenced the translation of the Scriptures ; he wrote 
endless controversial tracts ; his correspondence was unparalleled ; 
his efforts as a preacher were prodigious. But he was equal to it 
all ; was wonderfully adapted to his age and circumstances. 

About this time commenced his voluntary imprisonment at 
Wartburg, among the Thuringian forests : he being probably con- 
ducted thither by the orders of the elector of Saxony. Here he 
was out of sight, but not out of mind ; and his retirement, under 
the disguise of a knight, gave him leisure for literary labor. In 
the old Castle of Wartburg, a great part of the Scriptures was 
translated into that beautiful and simple version, which is still the 
standard of the German language. 

While Luther was translating the Scriptures, in his retreat, 
Wittemberg was the scene of new commotions, pregnant with 
great results. There were many of the more zealous converts to 
the reformed doctrines, headed by Carlstadt, dean of the faculty 
of theology, who were not content with the progress which had 
been made, and who desired more sweeping and radical changes. 
Such a party ever exists in all reforms; for there are some per- 
sons who are always inclined to ultra and extravagant courses. 
Carlstadt was a type of such men. He was learned, sincere, and 
amiable, but did not know where to stop ; and the experiment was 
now to be tried, whether it was possible to introduce a necessary 
reform, without annihilating also all the results of the labors of 
preceding generations. Carlstadfs mind was not well balanced; 
and to him the reformation was only a half measure, and a use- 
less movement, unless all the external observances of religion and 
the whole economy of the church were destroyed. He abolished, 
or desired to abolish, all priestly garments, all fasts and holydays, 
all pictures in the churches, and all emblematical ceremonies of 
every kind. He insisted upon closing all places of public amuse- 
ment, the abolition of all religious communities, and the division of 
their possessions among the poor. He maintained that there was 
no need of learning, or of academic studies, and even went into 
the houses of the peasantry to seek explanation of difficult passages 



CHAP. II.] CARLSTADT. 23 

of Scripture. For such innovations, the age was certainly not 
prepared, even had they been founded on reason ; and the conser- 
vative mind of Luther was shocked at extravagances which served 
to disgust the whole Christian world, and jeopardize the cause in 
which he had embarked. So, against the entreaties of the elec- 
tor, and in spite of the ban of the empire, he returned to Wittem- 
berg, a small city, it was true, but a place to which had congre- 
gated the flower of the German youth. He resolved to oppose 
the movements of Carlstadt, even though opposition should de- 
stroy his influence. Especially did he declare against all violent 
measures to which the ultra reformers were inclined, knowing full 
well, that, if his cause were sullied with violence or fanaticism, all 
Christendom would unite to suppress it. His sermons are, at this 
time, (1522,) pervaded with a profound and conservative spirit, and 
also a spirit of conciliation and love, calculated to calm passions, 
and carry conviction to excited minds. His moderate counsels 
prevailed, the tumults were hushed, and order was restored. 
Carlstadt was silenced for a time ; but a mind like his could not 
rest, especially on points where he had truth on his side. One of 
these was, in reference to the presence of Christ's body in the 
Eucharist, which Carlstadt totally denied. He taught " that the 
Lord's supper was purely symbolic, and was simply a pledge to 
believers of their redemption." But Luther saw, in every attempt 
to exhibit the symbolical import of the supper, only the danger of 
weakening the authority of Scripture, which was his stronghold, 
and became exceedingly tenacious on that point ; carried Ms 
views to the extreme of literal interpretation, and never could 
emancipate himself from the doctrines of Rome respecting the 
eucharist. Carlstadt, finding himself persecuted at Wittemberg, 
left the city, and, as soon as he was released from the presence 
of Luther, began to revive his former zeal against images also, 
and was the promoter of great disturbances. He at last sought 
refuge in Strasburg, and sacrificed fame, and friends, and bread to 
his honest convictions. 

But, nevertheless, the views of Carlstadt found advocates, and 
his extravagances were copied with still greater zeal. Many pre- 
tended to special divine illumination — the great central principle 
of all fanaticism. Among these was Thomas Miinzer, of Zwick- 



24 THOMAS MXJNZER. [CHAP. II. 

au, mystical, ignorant, and conceited, but sincere and simple- 
hearted. " Luther," said he, " has liberated men's consciences 
from the papal yoke, but has not led them in spirit towards God." 
Considering himself as called upon by a special revelation to 
bring men into greater spiritual liberty, he went about inflaming 
the popular mind, and raising discontents, and even inciting to a 
revolt. Religion now became mingled with politics, and social 
and political evils were violently resisted, under the garb of reli- 
gion. An insurrection at last arose in the districts of the Black 
Forest, (1524,) near the sources of the Danube, and spread from 
Suabia to the Rhine provinces, until it became exceedingly for- 
midable. Then commenced what is called the " peasants' war," 
which was only ended by the slaughter of fifty thousand people. As 
the causes of this war, after all, were chiefly political, the details 
belong to our chapter on political history. For this insurrection 
of the peasantry, however, Luther expressed great detestation ; 
although he availed himself of it to lecture the princes of Ger- 
many on their duties as civil rulers. 

The peasant war was scarcely ended, when Luther married 
Catharine Bora ; and, as she was a nun, and he was a monk, the 
marriage gave universal scandal. But this marriage, which proved 
happy, was. the signal of new reforms. Luther now emancipated 
himself from his monastic fetters, and lifted up his voice against 
the whole monastic system. Eight years had elapsed since he 
preached against indulgences. During these eight years, reform 
had been gradual, and had now advanced to the extreme limit it 
ever reached during the life of the reformer. 

But, in another quarter, it sprang up with new force, and was 
carried to an extent not favored in Germany. It was in Switzer- 
land that the greatest approximation was made to the forms, if 
not to the spirit, of primitive Christianity. 

The great hero of this Swiss movement was Ulric Zwingle, the 
most interesting of all the reformers. He was born in 1484, and 
educated amid the mountains of his picturesque country, and, like 
Erasmus, Reuchlin, Luther, and Melancthon, had no aristocratic 
claims, except to the nobility of nature. But, though poor, he 
was well educated, and was a master of the scholastic philosophy, 
and of all the learning of his age. Like Luther, he was passion- 



CHAP. II.] ULRIC ZWINGLE. 25 

ately fond of music, and played the lute, the harp, the violin, the 
flute, and the dulcimer. There was no more joyous spirit in all 
Switzerland than his. Every one loved his society, and honored his 
attainments, and admired his genius. Like Luther and Erasmus, 
he was disgusted with scholasticism, and regretted the time he had 
devoted to its study. He was. ordained in 1506, by the bishop 
of Constance, and was settled in Zurich in 1518. At first, his 
life did not differ from that which the clergy generally led, being 
one of dissipation and pleasure. But he was studious, and be- 
came well acquainted with the fathers, and with the original 
Greek. Only gradually did light dawn upon him, and this in 
consequence of his study of the Scriptures, not in consequence 
of Luther's preaching. He had no tempests to withstand, such as 
shook the soul of the Saxon monk. Nor had he ever devoted 
himself with the same ardor to the established church. Nor was 
he so much interested on doctrinal points of faith. But he saw 
with equal clearness the corruptions of the church, and preached 
with equal zeal against indulgences and the usurpations of the 
popes. The reformation of morals was the great aim of his life. 
His preaching was practical and simple, and his doctrine was, 
that " religion consisted in trust in God, loving God, and inno- 
cence of life." Moreover, he took a deep interest in the politi- 
cal relations of his country, and was an enthusiast hi liberty as 
well as in religion. To him the town of Zurich was indebted 
for its emancipation from the episcopal government of Constance, 
and also for a reformation in all the externals of the church. He 
inspired the citizens with that positive spirit of Protestantism, 
which afterwards characterized Calvin and the Puritans. He was 
too radical a reformer to suit Luther, although he sympathized 
with most of his theological opinions. 

On one point, however, they differed ; and this difference led to 
an acrimonious contest, quite disgraceful to Luther, and the greatest 
blot on his character, inasmuch as it developed, to an extraordinary 
degree, both obstinacy and dogmatism, and showed that he could 
not bear contradiction or opposition. The quarrel arose from a 
difference of views respecting the Lord's supper, Luther main- 
taining not exactly the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion, but something approximating to it — even the omnipresence of 
3 



26 CONTROVERSY BETWEEN LUTHER AND ZWINGLE. [CHAP. II. 

Christ's body in the sacred elements. He relinquished the doc- 
trine of the continually repeated miracle, but substituted a uni- 
versal miracle, wrought once for all. In his tenacity to the opin- 
ions of the schoolmen on this point, we see his conservative spirit ; 
for he did not deny tradition, unless it was expressly contradicted 
by Scripture. He would have maintained the whole structure of 
the Latin church, had it not been disfigured by modern additions, 
plainly at variance with the Scriptures ; and so profoundly was he 
attached to the traditions of the church, and to the whole church 
establishment, that he only emancipated himself by violent inward 
storms. But Zwingle had not this lively conception of the uni- 
versal church, and was more radical in his sympathies. He took 
Carlstadt's view of the supper, that it was merely symbolic. Still 
he shrunk from a rupture with Luther, which, however, was una- 
voidable, considering Luther's views of the subject and his cast of 
mind. Luther rejected all offers of conciliation, and, as he con- 
sidered it essential to salvation to believe in the real presence of 
Christ in the sacrament, he refused to acknowledge Zwingle as a 
brother. 

Zwingle, nevertheless, continued his reforms, and sought to 
restore, what he conceived to be, the earliest forms in which 
Christianity had manifested itself. He designed to restore a wor- 
ship purely spiritual. He rejected all rites and ceremonies, not 
expressly enjoined in the Bible. Luther insisted in retaining all 
that was not expressly forbidden. And this was the main point of 
distinction between them and their adherents. 

But Zwingle contemplated political, as well as religious, changes, 
and, as early as 1527, two years before his conference with Lu- 
ther at Marburg, had projected a league of all the reformers 
against the political authorities which opposed their progress. He 
combated the abuses of the state, as well as of the church. This 
opposition created great enemies against him among the cantons, 
with their different governments and alliances. He also secured 
enthusiastic friends, and, in all the cantons, there was a strong 
democratic party opposed to the existing oligarchies, which party, 
in Berne and Basle, St. Gall, Zurich, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, and 
Glarus, obtained the ascendency. This led to tumults and violence, 
and finally to civil war between the different cantons, those which 



/ 



CHAP. II.] DIET OF AUGSBURG. 27 

adhered to the old faith being assisted by Austria. Lucerne, 
Uri, Schwytz, Zug, Unterwalden took the lead against the re- 
formed cantons, the foremost of which was Zurich, where Zwingle 
lived. Zurich was attacked. Zwingle, from impulses of patriot- 
ism and courage, issued forth from his house, and joined the 
standard of his countrymen, not as a chaplain, but as an armed 
warrior. This was his mistake. " They who take the sword shall 
perish with the sword." The intrepid and enlightened reformer 
was slain in 1531, and, with his death, expired the hopes of his 
party. The restoration of the Roman Catholic religion immedi- 
ately commenced in Switzerland. 

Luther, more wise than Zwingle, inasmuch as he abstained 
from politics, continued his labors in Germany. And they were 
immense. The burdens of his country rested on his shoulders. 
He was the dictator of the reformed party, and his word was 
received as law. Moreover, the party continually increased, and, 
from the support it received from some of the most powerful of 
the German princes, it became formidable, even in a political 
point of view. Nearly one half of Germany embraced the 
reformed faith. 

The illustrious Charles V. had now, for some time, been em- 
peror, and, in the prosecution of his conquests, found it necessary 
to Secure the support of united Germany, especially sinee Ger- 
many was now invaded by the Turks. In order to secure this sup- 
port, he found it necessary to make concessions in religion to his 
Protestant subjects. At the diet of Augsburg, (1530,) where there 
was the most brilliant assemblage of princes which had been for 
a long time seen in Germany, the celebrated confession of the 
faith of the Protestants was read. It was written by Melancthon, 
in both Latin and German, on the basis of the articles of Torgau, 
which Luther had prepared. The style was Melancthon's ; the 
matter was Luther's. It was comprised in twenty-eight articles, 
of which twenty-one pertained to the faith of the Protestants — 
the name they assumed at the second diet of Spires, in 1529 — and 
the remaining seven recounted the errors and abuses of Rome. 
It was subscribed by the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Bran- 
denburg, the Duke of Lunenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, the 



28 LEAGUE OF SMALCALDE. [CHAP. II. 

Prince of Anhalt, and the deputies of the imperial cities Nurem- 
berg and Reutlingqp. But the Catholics had the ascendency in 
the diet, and the " Confession of Augsburg " was condemned. 
But the emperor did not venture on any decisive measures for the 
extirpation of the " heresy." He threatened and published edicts, 
but his menaces had but little force. Nevertheless, the Protestant 
princes assembled, first at Smalcalde, and afterwards at Frankfort, 
for an alliance of mutual defence, — the first effective union of 
free princes and states against their oppressors in modern Europe, 
— and laid the foundation of liberty of conscience. Hostilities, how- 
ever, did not commence, since the emperor was desirous of uniting 
Germany against the Turks ; and he therefore recalled his edicts 
of Worms and Augsburg against the Protestants, and made im- 
portant concessions, and promised them undisturbed enjoyment of 
their religion. This was a great triumph to the Protestants, and 
as great a shock to the Papal power. 

The Confession of Augsburg and the League of Smalcalde form 
an important era of Protestantism, since, by these, the reformed 
faith received its definite form, and was moreover guaranteed. 
The work for which Luther had been raised up was now', in the 
main, accomplished. His great message had been delivered and 
heard. 

After the confirmation of his cause, his life was perplexed and 
anxious. He had not anticipated those civil commotions which he 
now saw, sooner or later, were inevitable. With the increase of 
his party was the decline of spirituality. Political considerations, 
also, with many, were more prominent than moral. Religion and 
politics were mingled together, not soon to be separated in the 
progress of reform. Moreover, the reformers differed upon many 
points among themselves. There was a lamentable want of har- 
mony between the Germans and the Swiss. Luther had quarrelled 
with nearly eveiy prominent person with whom he had been asso- 
ciated, except Melancthon, who yielded to him implicit obedience. 
But, above all, the Anabaptist disorders, which he detested, and 
which distracted the whole bishopric of Minister, oppressed and 
mortified him. Worn out with cares, labors, and vexations, which 
ever have disturbed the peace and alloyed the happiness of great 



CHAP. II.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF LUTHER. 29 

heroes, and from which no greatness is exempt, he died at Eisle- 
ben, in 1545, while on a visit to his native place in order to recon- 
cile dissensions between the counts of .Mansfield. 

Luther's name is still reverenced in Germany, and, throughout 
all Protestant countries, he is regarded as the greatest man con- 
nected with the history of the church since the apostolic age. 
Others have been greater geniuses, others more learned, others 
more devout, and others more amiable and interesting ; but none 
ever evinced greater intrepidity, or combined greater qualities of 
mind and heart. He had his faults : he was irritable, dogmatic, 
and abusive in his controversial writings. He had no toleration 
for those who differed from him — the fault of the age. But he 
was genial, joyous, friendly, and disinterested. His labors were 
gigantic ; his sincerity unimpeached ; his piety enlightened ; his 
zeal unquenchable. Circumstances and the new ideas of his age, 
favored him, but he made himself master of those circumstances 
and ideas, and, what is more, worked out ideas of his own, which 
were in harmony with Christianity. The Reformation would have 
happened had there been no Luther, though at a less favorable 
time ; but, of all the men of his age that the Reformation could 
least spare, Martin Luther stands preeminent. As the greatest of 
reformers, his name will be ever honored. 



References. — The attention of the student is directed only to the 
most prominent and valuable -works which treat of Luther and the Prot- 
estant reformation. All the works are too nunerous, even to be deci- 
mated. Allusion is made to those merely which are accessible and 
useful. Among them may be mentioned, as most important, Ranke's 
History of the Reformation ; D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation; 
Michelet's Life of Luther; Audin's Life of Luther, a Catholic work, 
written with great spirit, but not much liberality ; Stebbing's History of 
the Reformation ; a Life of Luther, by Rev. Dr. Sears, a new work, writ- 
ten with great correctness and ability ; Guizot's Lectures on Civilization ; 
Plank's Essay on the Consequences of the Reformation. 

3* 



30 CHARLES V. [CHAP. III. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. 

When Luther appeared upon the stage, the great monarchies 
of Europe had just arisen upon the ruins of those Feudal states 
which survived the wreck of Charlemagne's empire. 

The Emperor of Germany, of all the monarchs of Europe, had 
the greatest claim to the antiquity and dignity of his throne. As 
hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol, he 
had absolute authority in his feudal provinces ; while, as an elected 
emperor, he had an indirect influence over Saxony, the Palatinate, 
the three archbishoprics of Treves, Mentz, and Cologne, and 
some Burgundian territories. 

But the most powerful monarchy, at this time, was probably 
that of France ; and its capital was the largest city in Europe, and 
the resort of the learned and elegant from all parts of Christendom. 
All strangers extolled the splendor of the court, the wealth of 
the nobles, and the fame of the university. The power of the 
monarch was nearly absolute, and a considerable standing army, 
even then, was ready to obey his commands. 

Spain, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was ruled by 
Ferdinand and Isabella, who, by their marriage, had united the 
crowns of Castile and Arragon. The conquest of Granada and the 
discoveiy of America had added greatly to the political importance 
of Spain, and laid the foundation of its future greatness under 
Philip II. 

England, from its insular position, had not so much influence 
in European politics as the other powers to which allusion has 
been made, but it was, nevertheless, a nourishing and united 
kingdom. Henry VII., the founder of the house of Tudor, sat on 
the throne, and was successful in suppressing the power of the 
feudal nobility, and in increasing the royal authority. Kings, in the 



CHAP. III.] SPAIN AND FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 31 

fifteenth century, were the best protectors of the people, and aided 
them in their struggles against their feudal oppressors. England, 
however, had made but little advance in commerce or manufac- 
tures, and the people were still rude and ignorant. The clergy, 
as in other countries, were the most intelligent and wealthy por- 
tion of the population, and, consequently, the most influential, 
although disgraced by many vices. 

Italy then, as now, was divided into many independent states, 
and distracted by civil and religious dissensions. The duchy of 
Milan was ruled by Ludovico Moro, son of the celebrated Francis 
Sforza. Naples, called a kingdom, had just been conquered by 
the French. Florence was under the sway of the Medici. Ven- 
ice, whose commercial importance had begun to decline, was 
controlled by an oligarchy of nobles. The chair of St. Peter was 
filled by pope Alexander VI., a pontiff who has obtained an infa- 
mous immortality by the vices of debauchery, cruelty, and treach- 
ery. The papacy was probably in its most corrupt state, and 
those who had the control of its immense patronage, disregarded 
the loud call for reformation which was raised in every corner of 
Christendom. The popes were intent upon securing temporal as 
well as spiritual power, and levied oppressive taxes on both their 
spiritual and temporal subjects. 

The great northern kingdoms of Europe, which are now so 
considerable, — Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, — did not, 
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, attract much attention. 
They were plunged in barbarism and despotism, and the light of 
science or religion rarely penetrated into the interior. The mon- 
archs were sensual and cruel, the nobles profligate and rapacious, 
the clergy ignorant and corrupt, and the people degraded, and yet 
insensible to their degradation, with no aspirations for freedom, 
and no appreciation of the benefits of civilization. Such heroes as 
Peter and Gustavus Adolphus had not yet appeared. Nor were 
these northern nations destined to be immediately benefited by the 
impulse which the reformation gave, with the exception of Sweden, 
then the most powerful of these kingdoms. 

The Greek empire became extinct when Constantinople was 
taken by the Turks, in 1453. On its ruins, the Ottoman power 
was raised. At the close of the fifteenth century, the Turkish 



32 CHARLES V. [CHAP. III. 

arms were very powerful, and Europe again trembled before the 
Moslems. Greece and the whole of Western Asia were obedient 
to the sultan. But his power did not reach its culminating point 
until a century afterwards. 

Such were the various states of Europe when the Reformation 
broke out. Maximilian was emperor of Germany, and Charles V. 
had just inherited, from his father, Philip the Fair, who had mar- 
ried a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the kingdom of Spain, 
in addition to the dominion of the Netherlands. 

By the death of Maximilian, in 1519, the youthful sovereign of 
Spain and the Netherlands came into possession of the Austrian 
dominions ; and the electors, shortly after, chose him emperor of 
Germany. 

He was born at Ghent, A. D. 1500, and was educated with 
great care. He early displayed his love of government, and, at 
fifteen, was present at the deliberations of the cabinet. But he 
had no taste for learning, and gave but few marks of that genius 
which he afterwards evinced. He was much attached to his 
Flemish subjects, and, during the first year of his reign, gave great 
offence to the grandees of Spain and the nobles of Germany by 
his marked partiality for those men who had been his early com- 
panions. 

It is difficult to trace, in the career of Charles V., any powerful 
motives of conduct, separate from the. desire of aggrandizement. 
The interests of the church, with which he was identified, and the 
true welfare of his subjects, were, at different times, sacrificed to his 
ambition. Had there been no powerful monarchs on the other 
thrones of Europe, his dreams of power might possibly have been 
realized. But at this period there happened to be a constellation 
of princes. 

The greatest of these, and the chief rival through life of 
Charles, was Francis I. of France. He had even anticipated an 
election to the imperial crown, which would have made him more 
powerful than even Charles himself. The electors feared both, 
and chose Frederic of Saxony ; but he declined the dangerous 
post. Charles, as Archduke of Austria, had such great and 
obvious claims, that they could not be disregarded. He was there- 
fore the fortunate candidate. But his election was a great disap- 



CHAP. III.] WARS BETWEEN CHARLES AND FRANCIS. 33 

pointment to Francis, and he could not conceal his mortification. 
Peace could not long subsist between two envious and ambitious 
princes. Francis was nearly of the same age as Charles, had 
inherited nearly despotic power, was free from financial embarrass- 
ments, and ruled over an united and loyal people. He was therefore 
no contemptible match for Charles. In addition, he strengthened 
himself by alliances with the Swiss and Venetians. Charles 
sought the favor of the pope and Henry VIII. of England. The 
real causes of war were mutual jealousies, and passion for military 
glory. The assigned causes were, that Charles did not respect 
the claims of Francis as king of Naples ; and, on the other hand, 
that Francis had seized the duchy of Milan, which was a fief of 
the empire, and also retained the duchy of Burgundy, the patri- 
monial inheritance of the emperor. 

The political history of Europe, for nearly half a century, is a 
record of the wars between these powerful princes, of their mutual 
disasters, disappointments, and successes. Other contests were 
involved in these, and there were also some which arose from 
causes independent of mutual jealousy, such as the revolt of the 
Spanish grandees, of the peasants in Germany, and of the inva- 
sion of the empire by the Turks. During the reign of Charles, 
was also the division of the princes of Germany, on grounds of 
religion — the foundation of the contest which, after the death of 
Charles, convulsed Germany for thirty years. But the Thirty 
Years' War was a religious war — was one of the political conse- 
quences of the Reformation. The wars between Charles and 
Francis were purely wars of military ambition. Charles had 
greater territories and larger armies ; but Francis had more money, 
and more absolute control over his forces. Charles's power was 
checked in Spain by the free spirit of the Cortes, and in Ger- 
many by the independence of the princes, and by the embarrass- 
ing questions which arose out of the Reformation. 

It would be tedious to read the various wars between Charles 
and his rival. Each of them gained, at different times, great 
successes, and each experienced, in turn, the most humiliating 
reverses. Francis was even taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, 
in 1525, and confined in a fortress at Madrid, until he promised to 
the victors the complete dismemberment of France — an extorted 



34 WARS BETWEEN CHARLES AND FRANCIS. [CHAP. III. 

promise he never meant to keep. No sooner had he recovered 
his liberty, than he violated all his oaths, and Europe was again 
the scene of fresh nostilities. The passion of revenge was now 
added to that of ambition, and, as the pope had favored the cause 
of Francis, the generals of Charles invaded Italy. Rome was 
taken and sacked by the constable Bourbon, a French noble 
whom Francis had slighted, and cruelties and outrages were per- 
petrated by the imperial forces which never disgraced Alaric or 
Attila. 

Charles affected to be filled with grief in view of the victories 
of his generals, and pretended that they acted without his orders. 
He employed every artifice to deceive indignant Christendom, and 
appointed prayers and processions throughout Spain for the re- 
covery of the pope's liberty, which one stroke of his pen could 
have secured. Thus it was, that the most Catholic and bigoted 
prince in Europe seized the pope's person, and sacked his city, at 
the very time when Luther was prosecuting his reform. And 
this fact shows how much more powerfully the emperor was influ- 
enced by political, than by religious considerations. It also shows 
the providence of God in permitting the only men, who could 
have arrested the reformation, to spend their strength in battling 
each other, rather than the heresy which they deplored. Had 
Charles been less powerful and ambitious, he probably would have 
contented himself in punishing heretics, and in uniting with his 
natural ally, the pope, in suppressing every insurrection which had 
for its object the rights of conscience and the enjoyment of popu- 
lar liberty. 

The war was continued for two years longer between Francis 
and Charles, with great acrimony, but with various success, both 
parties being, at one time, strengthened by alliances, and then 
again weakened by desertions. At last, both parties were ex- 
hausted, and were willing to accede to terms which they had 
previously rejected with disdain. Francis was the most weakened 
and disheartened, but Charles was the most perplexed. The 
troubles growing out of the Reformation demanded his attention, 
and the Turks, at this period a powerful nation, were about in- 
vading Austria. The Spaniards murmured at the unusual length 
of the war, and money was with difficulty obtained. 



CHAP. III.] DIET OF SPIRES. 35 

Hence the peace of Cambray, August 5, 1529 ; which was very- 
advantageous to Charles, in consequence of the impulsive charac- 
ter of Francis, and his impatience to recover his children, whom 
he had surrendered to Charles in order to recover his liberty. He 
agreed to pay two millions of crowns for the ransom of his sons, 
and renounce his pretensions in the Low Countries and Italy. He, 
moreover, lost reputation, and the confidence of Europe, by the 
abandonment of his allies. Charles remained the arbiter of Italy, 
and was attentive to the interests of all who adhered to him. 
With less chivalry than his rival, he had infinitely more honor. 
Cold, sagacious, selfish, and ambitious, he was, however, just, and 
kept his word. He combined qualities we often see in selfish 
men — a sort of legal and technical regard to the letter of the law, 
with the constant violation of its spirit. A Shylock might not 
enter a false charge upon his books, while he would adhere to a 
most extortionate bargain. 

Charles, after the treaty of Cambray was signed, visited Italy 
with all the pomp of a conqueror. At Genoa, he honored Doria 
with many marks of distinction, and bestowed upon the republic 
new privileges. He settled all his difficulties with Milan, Venice, 
and Florence, and reestablished the authority of the Medici. He 
was then crowned by the pope, whom he had trampled on, as King 
of Lombardy and Emperor of the Romans, and hastened into 
Germany, which imperatively required his presence, both on 
account of dissensions among the princes, which the reformation 
caused, and the invasion of Austria by three hundred thousand 
Turks. He resolved to recover the old prerogatives of the em- 
peror of Germany, and crush those opinions which were under- 
mining his authority, as well as the power of Rome, with which 
his own was identified. 

A Diet of the empire was accordingly summoned at Spires, in 
order to take into consideration the state of religion, the main 
cause of all the disturbances in Germany. It met on the 15th of 
March, 1529, and the greatest address was required to prevent 
a civil war. All that Charles could obtain from the assembled 
princes was, the promise to prevent any further innovations. A 
decree to that effect was passed, against which, however, the 
followers of Luther protested, the most powerful of whom were 



36 HOSTILITIES BETWEEN CHARLES AND FRANCIS. [CHAP. III. 

the Elector of Saxony, the Marquis of Brandenburg, the Landgrave 
of Hesse, the Duk^ of Lunenburg, the Prince of Anhalt, and the 
deputies of fourteen imperial cities. This protest gave to them 
the name of Protestants — a name ever since retained. Soon 
after, the diet assembled at Augsburg, when the articles of faith 
among the Protestants were read, — known as the Confession of 
Augsburg, — which, however, the emperor opposed. In conse- 
quence of his decree, the Protestant princes entered into a league 
at Smalcalde, (December 22, 1530,) to support one another, and 
defend their religion. Circumstances continually occurred to 
convince Charles, that the extirpation of heresy by the sword was 
impossible in Germany, and moreover, he saw it was for his 
interest — to which his eye was peculiarly open — to unite all the 
German provinces in a vigorous confederation. Accordingly, 
after many difficulties, and with great reluctance, terms of pacifi- 
cation were agreed upon at Nuremburg, (1531,) and ratified in 
the diet at Ratisbon, shortly after, by which it was agreed that no 
person should be molested in his religion, and that the Protestants, 
on their part, should assist the emperor in resisting the invasion 
of the Turks. The Germans, with their customary good faith, 
furnished all the assistance they promised, and one of the best 
armies ever raised in Germany, amounting to ninety thousand 
foot, and thirty thousand horse, took the field, commanded by 
the emperor in person. But the campaign ended without any 
memorable event, both parties having erred from excessive 
caution. 

Francis soon availed himself of the difficulties and dangers of 
his rival, formed an alliance with the Turks, put forth his old 
claims, courted the favor of the German Protestants, and renewed 
hostilities. He marched towards Italy, and took possession of 
the dominions of the duke of Savoy, whom the emperor, at this 
juncture, was unable to assist, on account of his African expe- 
dition against the pirate Barbarossa. This noted corsair had 
built up a great power in Tunis and Algiers, and committed 
shameful ravages on all Christian nations. Charles landed in 
Africa with thirty thousand men, took the fortress of Goletta, de- 
feated the pirate's army, captured his capital, and restored the 
exiled Moorish king to his throne. In the midst of these victories, 



CHAP. III.] AFRICAN WAR. 37 

Francis invaded Savoy. Charles was terribly indignant, and 
loaded his rival with such violent invectives that Francis challenged 
him to single combat. The challenge was accepted, but the duel 
was never fought. Charles, in his turn, invaded France, with a 
large army, for that age — forty thousand foot and ten thousand 
horse ; but the expedition was unfortunate. Francis acted on the 
defensive with admirable skill, and was fortunate in his general, 
Montmorency, who seemed possessed with the spirit of a Fabius. 
The emperor, at last, was compelled to return ingloriously, having 
lost half of his army without having gained a single important ad- 
vantage. The joy of Francis, however, was embittered by the death 
of the dauphin, attributed by some to the infamous Catharine de 
Medici, wife of the Duke of Orleans, in order to secure the crown 
to her husband. War did not end with the retreat of Charles, but 
was continued, with great personal animosity, until mutual exhaus- 
tion led to a truce for ten years, concluded at Nice, in 1538. Both 
parties had exerted their utmost strength, and neither had obtained 
any signal advantage. Notwithstanding their open and secret 
enmity, they had an interview shortly after the truce, in which 
both vied with each other in expressions of esteem and friendship, 
and in the exhibition of chivalrous courtesies — a miserable mock- 
ery, as shown by the violation of the terms of the truce, and the 
renewal of hostilities in 1541. 

These were, doutless, facilitated by Charles's unfortunate expe- 
dition against Algiers in 1541, by which he gained nothing but 
disgrace. His army was wasted by famine and disease, and a 
tempest destroyed his fleet. All the complicated miseries which 
war produces were endured by his unfortunate troops, but a small 
portion of whom ever returned. Francis, taking advantage of 
these misfortunes, made immense military preparations, formed a 
league with the Sultan Solyman, and brought five armies into the 
field. He assumed the offensive, and invaded the Netherlands, 
but obtained no laurels. Charles formed a league with Henry 
VIII., and the war raged, with various success, without either 
party obtaining any signal advantage, for three years, when a 
peace was concluded at Crespy, in 1544. Charles, being in the 
heart of France with an invading army, had the apparent advantage ; 
but the difficulty of retreating out of France in case of disaster, 
4 



38 COUNCIL OF TRENT. [CHAP. III. 

and the troubles in Germany, forced him to suspend his militaiy 
operations. The £ope, also, was offended because he had con- 
ceded so much to the Protestants, and the Turks pressed him on 
the side of Hungary. Moreover, he was afflicted with the gout, 
which indisposed him for complicated enterprises. In view of 
these things, he made peace with Francis, formed a strong alliance 
with the pope, and resolved to extirpate the Protestant religion, 
which was the cause of so many insurrections in Germany. 

In the mean time, the pope resolved to assemble the famous 
Council of Trent, the legality of which the Protestants denied. It 
met in December, 1545, and was the last general council which 
the popes ever assembled. It met with a view of healing the 
dissensions of the church, and confirming the authority of the 
pope. The princes of Europe hoped that important reforms would 
have been made ; but nothing of consequence was done, and the 
attention of the divines was directed to dogmas rather than morals. 
The great number of Italian bishops enabled the pope to have every 
thing his own way, in spite of the remonstrance of the German, 
Spanish, and French prelates, and the ambassadors of the differ- 
ent monarchs, who also had seats in the council. The decrees of 
this council, respecting articles of faith, are considered as a final 
authority by the Roman church. It denounced the reform of 
Luther, and confirmed the various ecclesiastical usurpations which 
had rendered the reformation necessary. It lasted twenty-two 
years, at different intervals, during the pontificate of five popes. 
The Jesuits, just rising into notice, had considerable influence in the 
council, in consequence of the learning and ability of their repre- 
sentatives, and especially of Laynez, the general of the order. 
The Dominicans and Franciscans manifested their accustomed 
animosities and rivalries, and questions were continually proposed 
and agitated, which divided the assembly. The French bishops, 
headed by the Cardinal of Lorraine, were opposed to the high pre- 
tensions of the Italians, especially of Cardinal Morone, the papal 
legate ; but, by artifice and management, the more strenuous 
adherents of the pope attained their ends. 

About the time the council assembled, died three distinguished 
persons — Henry VIII. of England, Francis I., and Luther. 
Charles V. was freed from his great rival, and from the only 



CHAP. III.] TREACHERY OF MAURICE. 39 

private person in his dominions he had reason to fear. He now, 
in good earnest, turned his attention to the internal state of his 
empire, and resolved to crush the Reformation, and, by force, if 
it were necessary. He commenced by endeavoring to amuse and 
deceive the Protestants, and evinced that profound dissimulation, 
which was one of his characteristics. He formed a strict alliance 
with the pope, made a truce with Solyman, and won over to his 
side Maurice and other German princes. His military prepara- 
tions and his intrigues alarmed the Protestants, and they prepared 
themselves for resistance. Religious zeal seconded their military 
ardor. One of the largest armies, which had been raised in Eu- 
rope for a century, took the fields and Charles, shut up in Ratis- 
bon, was in no condition to fight. Unfortunately for the Protes- 
tants, they negotiated instead of acting. The emperor was in 
their power, but he was one of those few persons who remained 
haughty and inflexible in the midst of calamities. He pronounced 
the ban of the empire against the Protestant princes, who were no 
match for a man who had spent his life in the field : they acted 
without concert, and committed many errors. Their forces de- 
creased, while those of the emperor increased by large additions 
from Italy and Flanders. Instead of decisive action, the Protes- 
tants dallied and procrastinated, unwilling to make peace, and 
unwilling to face their sovereign. Their army melted away, and 
nothing of importance was effected. 

Maurice, cousin to the Elector of Saxony, with a baseness to which 
histoiy scarcely affords a parallel, deserted his allies, and joined 
the emperor, purely from ambitious motives, and invaded the terri- 
tories of his kinsman with twelve thousand men. The confederates 
made overtures of peace, which being rejected, they separated, 
and most of them submitted to the emperor. He treated them 
with haughtiness and rigor, imposed on them most humiliating 
terms, forced them to renounce the league of Smalcalde, to give 
up their military stores, to admit garrisons into their cities, and to 
pay large contributions in money. 

The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, however, 
held out ; and such was the condition of the emperor, that he could 
not immediately attack them. But the death of Francis gave him 
leisure to invade Saxony, and the elector was defeated at the battle 



40 CAPTIVITY OF THE LANDGKAVE OF HESSE. [CHAP. III. 

of Mulhausen, (1547,) and taken prisoner. The captive prince 
approached the victor without sullenness or pride. " The fortune 
of war," said he, " has made me your prisoner, most gracious 
emperor, and I hope to be treated " Here Charles inter- 
rupted him — " And am I, at last, acknowledged to be emperor ? 
Charles of Ghent was the only title you lately allowed me. You 
shall be treated as you deserve." At these words he turned his 
back upon him with a haughty air. 

The unfortunate prince was closely guarded by Spanish soldiers, 
and brought to a trial before a court martial, at which presided the 
infamous Duke of Alva, afterwards celebrated for his cruelties in 
Holland. He was convicted of treason and rebellion, and sen- 
tenced to death — a sentence which no court martial had a right 
to inflict on the first prince of the empire. He was treated with 
ignominious harshness, which he bore with great magnanimity, but 
finally made a treaty with the emperor, by which, for the preserva- 
tion of his life, he relinquished his kingdom to Maurice. 

The landgrave was not strong enough to resist the power of 
Cbarles, after all his enemies were subdued, and he made his sub- 
mission, though Charles extorted the most rigorous conditions, he 
being required to surrender his person, abandon the league of 
Smalcalde, implore pardon on his knees, demolish his fortifications, 
and pay an enormous fine. In short, it was an unconditional sub- 
mission. Beside infinite mortifications, he was detained a prisoner, 
which, on Charles's part, was but injury added to insult — an act 
of fraud and injustice which inspired the prince, and the Protes- 
tants, generally, with unbounded indignation. The Elector of Bran- 
denburg and Maurice in vain solicited for his liberty, and showed 
the infamy to which he would be exposed if he detained the land- 
grave a prisoner. But the emperor listened to their remonstrances 
with the most provoking coolness, and showed very plainly that he 
was resolved to crush all rebellion, suppress Protestantism, and raise 
up an absolute throne in Germany, to the subversion of its ancient 
constitution. 

To all appearances, his triumph was complete. His great rival 
was dead ; his enemies were subdued and humiliated ; Luther's 
voice was hushed ; and immense contributions filled the imperial 
treasury. He now began to realize the dreams of his life. He 



CHAP. III.] HEROISM OF MAURICE. 41 

was unquestionably, at that time, the most absolute and powerful 
prince Europe has ever seen since Charlemagne, with the exception 
of Napoleon. 

But what an impressive moral does the histoiy of human great- 
ness convey ! The hour of triumph is often but the harbinger of 
defeat and shame. " Pride goeth before destruction." Charles 
V., with all his policy and experience, overreached himself. The 
failure of his ambitious projects and the restoration of Protestant- 
ism, were brought about by instruments the least anticipated. 

The cause of Protestantism and the liberties of Germany were 
endangered by the treachery of Maurice, who received, as his 
reward, the great electorate of Saxony. He had climbed to the 
summit of glory and power. Who would suppose that this traitor 
prince would desert the emperor, who had so splendidly rewarded 
his services, and return to the rescue of those princes whom he 
had so basely betrayed ? But who can thread the labyrinth of an 
intriguing and selfish heart ? Who can calculate the movements 
of an unprincipled and restless politician ? Maurice, at length, 
awoke to the perception of the real condition of his country. He 
saw its liberties being overturned by the most ambitious man 
whom ten centuries had produced. He saw the cause, which 
his convictions told him was the true one, in danger of being 
wrecked. He was, moreover, wounded by the pride, coldness, and 
undisguised selfishness of the emperor. He was indignant that 
the landgrave, his father-in-law, should be retained a prisoner, 
against all the laws of honor and of justice. He resolved to come 
to the rescue of his countiy. He formed his plans with the great- 
est coolness, and exercised a power of dissimulation that has no 
parallel in history. But his address was even greater than his 
hypocrisy. He gained the confidence of the Protestants, without 
losing that of the emperor. He even obtained the command of 
an army which Charles sent to reduce the rebellious city of Mag- 
deburg, and, while he was besieging the city, he was negotiating 
with the generals who defended it for a general union against the 
emperor. Magdeburg surrendered in 1551. Its chieftains were 
secretly assured that the terms of capitulation should not be ob- 
served. His next point was, to keep the army together until his 
schemes were ripened, and then to arrest the emperor, whose 
4* 



42 MISFORTUNES OF CHARLES. [CHAP. III. 

thoughts now centred on the council of Trent. So he proposed 
sending ProtestanJ divines to the council, but delayed, their depart- 
ure by endless negotiations about the terms of a safe conduct. 
He, moreover, formed a secret treaty with Henry II., the successor 
of Francis, whose animosity against Charles was as intense as was 
that of his father. When his preparations were completed^ he 
joined his army in Thuringia, and took the field against the empe- 
ror, who had no suspicion of his designs, and who blindly trusted 
to him, deeming it impossible that a man, whom he had so honored 
and rewarded, could turn against him. March 18, 1552, Maurice 
published his manifesto, justifying his conduct ; and his reasons 
were, to secure the Protestant religion, to maintain the constitution 
of the empire, and deliver the Landgrave of Hesse from bondage. 
He was powerfully supported by the French king, and, with a 
rapidly increasing army, marched towards Inspruck, where the 
emperor was quartered. The emperor was thunderstruck when 
he heard the tidings of his desertion, and was in no condition to 
resist him. He endeavored to gain time by negotiations, but these 
were without effect. Maurice, at the head of a large army, ad- 
vanced rapidly into Upper Germany. Castles and cities surren- 
dered as he advanced, and so rapid was his progress, that he came 
near taking the emperor captive. Charles was obliged to fly, in 
the middle of the night, and to travel on a litter by torchlight, 
amid the passes of the Alps. He scarcely left Inspruck before 
Maurice entered it — but too late to gain the prize he sought. 
The emperor rallied his armies, and a vigorous war was carried 
on between the contending parties, to the advantage of the Protes- 
tants. The emperor, after a while, was obliged to make peace 
with them, for his Spanish subjects were disgusted with the war, 
his funds were exhausted, his forces dispersed, and his territories 
threatened by the French. On the 2d of August, 1552, was 
concluded the peace of Passau, which secured the return of the 
landgrave to his dominions, the freedom of religion to the Protes- 
tants, and the preservation of the German constitution. The san- 
guine hopes of the emperor were dispelled, and all his ambitious 
schemes defeated, and he left to meditate, in the intervals of the 
pains which he suffered from the gout, on the instability of ali 
greatness, and the vanity of human life. Maurice was now 



CHAP. III.] TREATY OF PASSAU. 43 

extolled as extravagantly as he had been before denounced, and 
his treachery justified, even by grave divines. But what is most 
singular in the whole affair, was, that the French king, while per- 
secuting Protestants at home, should protect them abroad. But 
this conduct may confirm, in a signal manner, the great truth of 
history, that God regulates the caprice of human passions, and 
makes them subservient to the accomplishment of his own pur- 
poses. 

The labors and perplexities of Charles V. were not diminished 
by the treaty of Passau. He continued his hostilities against the 
French and against the Turks. He was obliged to raise the siege 
of Metz, which was gallantly defended by the Duke of Guise. 
To his calamities in France, were added others in Italy. Siena 
revolted against his government, and Naples was threatened by the 
Turks. The imperialists were unsuccessful in Italy and in Hun- 
gary, and the Archduke Ferdinand was obliged to abandon Tran- 
sylvania. But war was earned on in the Low Countries with 
considerable vigor, 

Charles, whose only passion was the aggrandizement of his 
house, now projected a marriage of his son, Philip, with Mary, 
queen of England. The queen, dazzled by the prospect of mar- 
rying the heir of the greatest monarch in Europe, and eager to 
secure his powerful aid to reestablish Catholicism in England, 
listened to his proposal, although it was disliked by the nation. In 
spite of the remonstrance of the house of commons, the marriage 
treaty was concluded, and the marriage celebrated, (1554.) 

Soon after, Charles formed the extraordinary resolution of re- 
signing his dominions to his son, and of retiring to a quiet retreat. 
Diocletian is the only instance of a prince, capable of holding the 
reins of government, who had adopted a similar course. All 
Europe was astonished at the resolution of Charles, and all histo- 
rians of the period have moralized on the event. But it ceases to 
be mysterious, when we remember that Charles was no nearer 
the accomplishment of the ends which animated his existence, 
than he was thirty years before ; that he was disgusted and 
wearied with the world ; that he suffered severely from the gout, 
which, at times, incapacitated him for the government of his 
extensive dominions. It was never his habit to intrust others with 



44 CHARACTER OF CHARLES V. [CHAP. III. 

duties and labors which he could perform himself, and he felt that 
his empire needed a more powerful protector than his infirmities 
permitted him to De. He was grown prematurely old ; he felt 
his declining health ; longed for repose, and sought religious con- 
solation. Of all his vast possessions, he only reserved an annual 
pension of one hundred thousand crowns ; resigning Spain and the 
Low Countries into the hands of Philip, and the empire of Ger- 
many to his brother Ferdinand, who had already been elected as 
King of the Romans. He then set out for his retreat in Spain, 
which was the monastery of St. Justus, near Placentia, situated in 
a lovely vale, surrounded with lofty trees, watered by a small 
brook, and rendered attractive by the fertility of the soil, and the 
delightful temperature of the climate. Here he spent his last 
days in agricultural improvements and religious exercises, appa- 
rently regardless of that noisy world which he had deserted for- 
ever, and indifferent to those political storms which his restless 
ambition had raised. Here his grandeur and his worldly hopes 
were buried in preparing himself for the future world. He lived 
with great simplicity, for two years after his retreat, and died 
(1558,) from the effects of the gout, which, added to his great 
labors, had shattered his constitution. He was not what the world 
would call a great genius, like Napoleon ; but he was a man of 
great sagacity, untiring industry, and respectable attainments. 
He was cautious,, cold, and selfish ; had but little faith in human 
virtue ; and was a slave, in his latter days, to superstition. He 
was neither affable nor courteous, but was sincere in his attach- 
ments, and munificent in rewarding his generals and friends. He 
was not envious nor cruel, but inordinately ambitious, and intent 
on aggrandizing his family. This was his characteristic defect, 
and this, in a man so prominent and so favored by circumstances, 
was enough to keep Europe in a turmoil for nearly half a cen- 
tury. 



References. — Robertson's History of Charles V. Ranke's History of 
the Reformation. Kohlrausch's History of Germany. Russell's Modern 
Europe. The above-mentioned authors are easily accessible, and are all 
that are necessary for the student. Robertson's History is a classic, and 
an immortal work. 



CHAP. IV.] RISE OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

HENRY VIII. 

The history of Europe in the sixteenth century is peculiarly 
the history of the wars of kings, and of their efforts to establish 
themselves and their families on absolute thrones. The monoto- 
nous, and almost exclusive, record of royal pleasures and pursuits 
shows in how little consideration the people were held. They 
struggled, and toiled, and murmured as they do now. They 
probably had the same joys and sorrows as in our times. But, in 
these times, they have considerable influence on the government, 
the religion, the literature, and the social life of nations. In the 
sixteenth century, this influence was not so apparent ; but power 
of all kinds seemed to emanate from kings and nobles ; at least 
from wealthy and cultivated classes. When this is the case, 
when kings give a law to society, history is not unphilosophical 
which recognizes chiefly their enterprises and ideas. 

The rise of absolute monarchy on the ruins of feudal states is 
one of the chief features of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
There was every where a strong tendency to centralization. 
Provinces, before independent, were controlled by a central 
government. Standing armies took the place of feudal armies. 
Kings took away from nobles the right to coin money, administer 
justice, and impose taxes. The power of the crown became 
supreme and unlimited. 

But some monarchs were more independent than others, in pro- 
portion as the power of nobles was suppressed, or, as the cities 
sided with the central government, or, as provinces were con- 
nected and bound together. The power of Charles V. was some- 
what limited, in Spain, by the free spirit of the Cortes, and, in Ger- 
many, by the independence of the princes of the empire. But, in 
France and England, the king was more absolute, although he 
did not rule over so great extent of territory as did the emperor 
of Germany ; and this is one reason why Francis I. proved so 
strong an antagonist to his more powerful rival. 



46 HENRY VIII. [CHAP. IV. 

The history of France, during the reign of this monarch, is also 
the histoiy of Charles V., since they were both engaged in the 
same wars ; which wars have already been alluded to. Both of 
these monarchs failed in the objects of their existence. If Charles 
did not realize his dream of universal empire, neither did Francis 
leave his kingdom, at his death, in a more prosperous state than 
he found it. 

Francis I. was succeeded by his son Henry II., a warlike prince, 
but destitute of prudence, and under the control of women. His 
policy, however, was substantially that of his father, and he con- 
tinued hostilities against the emperor of Germany, till his resigna- 
tion. He was a bitter persecutor of the Protestants, and the seeds 
of subsequent civil wars were sown by his zeal. He was removed 
from his throne prematurely, being killed at a tournament, in 
1559, soon after the death of Charles V. Tournaments ceased 
with his death. 

The reign of Henry VIII., the other great contemporary of 
Charles V., merits a larger notice, not only because his reign was 
the commencement of a new era in England, but, also, because the 
affairs, which engaged his attention, are not much connected with 
continental history. 

He ascended the throne in the year 1509, in his eighteenth 
year, without opposition, and amid the universal joy of the nation ; 
for his manners were easy and frank, his disposition was cheerful, 
and his person was handsome. He had made respectable literary 
attainments, and he gave promise of considerable abilities. He 
was married, soon after his accession, to Catharine, daughter of 
the King of Spain, and the first years of his reign were happy, 
both to himself and to his subjects. He had a well-filled treasury, 
which his father had amassed with great care, a devoted people, 
and an obedient parliament. All circumstances seemed to con- 
spire to strengthen his power, and to make him the arbiter of 
Europe. 

But this state did not last long. The young king was resolved 
to make war on France, but was diverted from his aim by troubles 
in Scotland, growing out of his own rapacity — a trait which ever 
peculiarly distinguished him. These troubles resulted in a war 
with the Scots, who were defeated at the memorable battle of 



CHAP. IV.] EISE OF CARDINAL WOLSEY. 47 

Flodden Field, which Sir Walter Scott, in his Marmion, has im- 
mortalized. The Scotch commanders, Lenox and Argyle, both 
perished, as well as the valiant King James himself. There is 
scarcely an illustrious Scotch family who had not an ancestor slain 
on that fatal day, September 9, 1513. But the victory was dearly 
bought, and Surrey, the English general, afterwards Duke of Nor- 
folk, was unable to pursue his advantages. 

About this time, the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey began to act a 
conspicuous part in English affairs. His father was a butcher of 
Ipswich ; but was able to give his son a good education. He 
studied at Oxford, was soon distinguished for his attainments, and 
became tutor to the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. The marquis 
gave him the rich living of Limington ; but the young parson, with 
his restless ambition, and love of excitement and pleasure, was 
soon wearied of a country life. He left his parish to become do- 
mestic chaplain to the treasurer of Calais. This post introduced 
him to Fox, bishop of Winchester, who shared with the Earl of 
Surrey the highest favors of royalty. The minister and diplomatist, 
finding in the young man learning, tact, vivacity, and talent for 
business, introduced him to the king, hoping that he would prove 
an agreeable companion for Henry, and a useful tool for himself. 
But those who are able to manage other people's business, gen- 
erally are able to manage their own. The tool of Fox looked 
after his own interest chiefly. He supplanted his master in the 
royal favor, and soon acquired more favor and influence at court 
than any of the ministers or favorites. Though twenty years older 
than Hemy, he adapted himself to all his tastes, flattered his vanity 
and passions, and became his bosom friend. He gossiped with 
him about Thomas Aquinas, the Indies, and affairs of gallantry. 
He was a great refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for 
magnificence and display, and a real genius for court entertain- 
ments. He could eat and drink with the gayest courtiers, sing 
merry songs, and join in the dance. He was blunt and frank in 
his manners ; but these only concealed craft and cunning. " It is 
art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master of all the tricks of 
dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once gained the heart 
of the king. He became successively dean of York, papal legate, 
cardinal, bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, and lord chancellor. 



48 MAGNIFICENCE OF HENRY VIII. [cHAP. IV. 

He also obtained the administration and the temporalities of the 
rich abbey of St. Albans, and of the bishoprics of Bath and Wells, 
Durham and Winchester. By these gifts, his revenues almost 
equalled those of the crown ; and he squandered them in a style of 
unparalleled extravagance. He dressed in purple and gold, sup- 
ported a train of eight hundred persons, and built Hampton Court. 
He was the channel through which the royal favors flowed. But 
he made a good chancellor, dispensed justice, repressed the power 
of the nobles, encouraged and rewarded literary men, and endowed 
colleges. He was the most magnificent and the most powerful 
subject that England has ever seen. Even nobles were proud to 
join his train of dependants. There was nothing sordid or vulgar, 
however, in all his ostentation. Henry took pleasure in his pomp, 
for it was a reflection of the greatness of his own majesty. 

The first years of the reign of Henry VIII., after the battle of 
Flodden Field, were spent in pleasure, and in great public displays 
of magnificence, which charmed the people, and made him a 
popular idol. Among these, the interview of the king with Fran- 
cis I. is the most noted, on the 4th of June, 1520; the most gor- 
geous pageant of the sixteenth centuiy, designed by Wolsey, who 
had a genius for such things. The monarchs met in a beautiful 
valley, where jousts and tournaments were held, and where was 
exhibited all the magnificence which the united resources of 
France and England could command. The interview was sought 
by Francis to win, through Wolsey, the favor of the king, and to 
counterbalance the advantages which it was supposed Charles V. 
had gained on a previous visit to the king at Dover. 

The getting up of the " Field of the Cloth of Gold " created 
some murmurs among the English nobility, many of whom were 
injured by the expensive tastes of Wolsey. Among these was the 
Duke of Buckingham, hereditary high constable of England, and 
connected with the royal house of the Plantagenets. Henry, from 
motives of jealousy, both on account of his birth and fortune, had 
long singled him out as his victim. He was, also, obnoxious to 
Wolsey, since he would not flatter his pride, and he had, moreover, 
insulted him. It is very easy for a king to find a pretence for 
committing a crime ; and Buckingham was arrested, tried, and ex- 
ecuted, for making traitorous prophecies. His real crime was in 



CHAP. IV.] ANNE BOLEYN. 49 

being more powerful than it suited the policy of the king. With 
the death of Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in 1521, commenced 
the bloody cruelty of Henry VIII. 

Soon after the death of Buckingham, the king made himself 
notorious for his theological writings against Luther, whose doc- 
trines he detested. He ever had a taste for theological disputa- 
tion, and a love of the schoolmen. His tracts against Luther, 
very respectable for talent and learning, though disgraced by 
coarse and vulgar vituperation, secured for him the favor of the 
pope, who bestowed upon him the title of " Defender of the 
Faith;" and a strong alliance existed between them until the 
divorce of Queen Catharine. 

The difficulties and delays, attending this act of cruelty and 
injustice, constitute no small part of the domestic history of Eng- 
land during the reign of Henry VIII. Any event, which furnishes 
subjects of universal gossip and discussion, is ever worthy of his- 
torical notice, inasmuch as it shows prevailing opinions and tastes. 

Queen Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand, King of Spain, was 
eight years older than her husband, whom she married in the first 
year of his reign. She had been previously married to his brother 
Arthur, who died of the plague in 1502. For several years after 
her marriage with Henry VIII., her domestic happiness was a 
subject of remark; and the emperor, Charles V., congratulated her 
on her brilliant fortune. She was beautiful, sincere, accomplished, 
religious, and disinterested, and every way calculated to secure, as 
she had won, the king's affections. 

But among her maids of honor there was one peculiarly ac- 
complished and fascinating, to whom the king transferred his 
affections with unwonted vehemence. This was Anne Boleyn, 
daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who, from his great wealth, mar- 
ried Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the first duke of Norfolk. 
This noble alliance brought Sir Thomas Boleyn into close connec- 
tion with royalty, and led to the appointment of his daughter to 
the high post which she held at the court of Queen Catharine. It 
is probable that the king suppressed his passion for some time ; and 
it would have been longer concealed, even from its object, had not 
his jealousy been excited by her attachment to Percy, son of the 
Earl of Northumberland. The king at last made known his pas» 
5 



50 QUEEN CATHARINE. [CHAP. IV. 

sion ; but the daughter of the Howards was too proud, or too politic, 
or too high principled, to listen to his overtures. It was only as 
queen of England, that she would return the passion of her royal 
lover. Moreover, she resolved to be revenged on the all-powerful 
cardinal, for assisting in her separation from Percy, whom she 
loved with romantic attachment. The king waited four years, but 
Anne remained inflexibly virtuous. He then meditated the divorce 
from Catharine, as the only way to accomplish the object which 
now seemed to animate his existence. He confided the matter 
to his favorite minister ; but Wolsey was thunderstruck at the 
disclosure, and remained with him four hours on his knees, to 
dissuade him from a step which he justly regarded as madness. 
Here Wolsey appears as an honest man and a true friend ; but 
royal infatuation knows neither wisdom, justice, nor humanity. 
Wolsey, as a man of the world, here made a blunder, and departed 
from the policy he had hitherto pursued — that of flattering the 
humors of his absolute master. Wolsey, however, recommended 
the king to consult the divines ; for Henry pretended that, after 
nearly twenty years of married life, he had conscientious scruples 
about the lawfulness of his marriage. The learned English doc- 
tors were afraid to pronounce their opinions, and suggested a refer- 
ence to the fathers. But the king was not content with their 
authority ; he appealed to the pope, and to the decisions of half of 
the universities of Europe. It seems very singular that a sovereign 
so unprincipled, unscrupulous, and passionate, and yet so absolute 
and powerful as was Henry, should have wasted his time and money 
in seeking countenance to an act on which he was fully deter- 
mined, and which countenance he never could reasonably hope 
to secure. But his character was made up of contradictions. 
His caprice, violence, and want of good faith, were strangely 
blended with superstition and reverence for the authority of the 
church. His temper urged him to the most rigorous measure of 
injustice ; and his injustice produced no shame, although he was 
restrained somewhat by the opinions of the very men whom he 
did net hesitate to murder. 

Qv m Catharine^ besides being a virtuous and excellent woman, 
was Nyerfully allied, and was a zealous Catholic. Her repudia- 
tion erefore, could not take place without offending the very 



CHAP. IV.] DISGKACE AND DEATH OF WOLSEY. 51 

persons whose favor the king was most anxious to conciliate, 
especially the Emperor Charles, her nephew, and the pope, and 
all the high dignitaries and adherents of the church. Even 
Wolsey could not in honor favor the divorce, although it was his 
policy to do so. In consequence of his intrigues, and the scandal 
and offence so outrageous an act as the divorce of Catharine must 
necessarily produce throughout the civilized world, Henry long 
delayed to bring the matter to a crisis, being afraid of a war with 
Charles V., and of the anathemas of the pope. Moreover, he 
hoped to gain him over, for the pope had sent Cardinal Campeggio 
to London, to hold, with his legate Wolsey, a court to hear the 
case. But it was the farthest from his intention to grant the 
divorce, , for the pope was more afraid of Charles V. than he 
was of Henry VIII. 

The court settled nothing, and the king's wrath now turned 
towards Wolsey, whom he suspected of secretly thwarting his 
measures. The accomplished courtier, so long accustomed to the 
smiles and favors of royalty, could not bear his disgrace with dig- 
nity. The proudest man in England became, all at once, the 
meanest. He wept, he cringed, he lost his spirits ; he surrendered 
his palace, his treasures, his honors, and his offices, into the hands 
of him who gave them to him, without a single expostulation ; 
wrote most abject letters to " his most gracious, most merciful, and 
most pious sovereign lord ; " and died of a broken heart on his way 
to a prison and the scaffold. " Had I but served my God as dili- 
gently as I have served the king, he would not have given me 
over in my gray hairs " — these were the words of the dying 
cardinal ; his sad confessions on experiencing the vanity of human 
life. But the vindictive prince suffered no word of sorrow or 
regret to escape him, when he heard of the death of his prime 
minister, and his intimate friend for twenty years. 

Shortly after the disgrace of Wolsey, which happened nearly 
a year before his death, (1529,) three remarkable men began to 
figure in English politics and history. These were Sir Thomas 
More, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell. More T '"as the 
most accomplished, most learned, and most enlightened >f the 
three. He was a Catholic, but veiy exemplary in his t? and 
charitable in his views. In moral elevation of chara : and 



52 MORE CEANMEE CEOMWELL. [CHAP. IV. 

beautiful serenity of soul, the annals of the great men of his 
country furnish no superior. His extensive erudition and moral 
integrity alone secured him the official station which Wolsey held 
as lord chancellor. He was always the intimate friend of the lung ; 
and his conversation, so enlivened by wit, and so rich and varied in 
matter, caused his society to be universally sought. He discharged 
his duties with singular conscientiousness and ability ; and no one 
ever had cause to complain that justice was not rendered him. 

Cranmer' s elevation was owing to a fortunate circumstance, not- 
withstanding his exalted merit. He happened to say, while tutor 
to a gentleman of the name of Cressy, in the hearing of Dr. Gar- 
diner, then secretaiy to Henry, that the proper way to settle the 
difficulty about the divorce was, to appeal to learned men, who 
would settle the matter on the sole authority of the Bible, without 
reference to the pope. This remark was reported to the king, and 
Cranmer was sent to reside with the father of Anne Boleyn, and 
was employed in writing a treatise to support his opinion. His 
ability led to further honors, until, on the death of Warham, arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, he was appointed to the vacant see, the first 
office in dignity and importance in the kingdom, and from which 
no king, however absolute, could eject him, except by the loss of 
life. We shall see that, in all matters of religion, Cranmer was 
the ruling spirit in England until the accession of Mary. 

Cromwell's origin was even more obscure than that of Wolsey's ; 
but he received his education at one of the universities. We first 
hear of him as a clerk in an English factory at Antwerp, then as a 
soldier in the army of Constable Bourbon when he sacked Rome, 
then as a clerk in a mercantile house in Venice, and then again 
as a lawyer in England, where he attracted the attention of Wol- 
sey, who made him his solicitor, and employed him in the disso- 
lution of monasteries. He then became a member of the house of 
commons, where his address and business talents were conspicuous. 
He was well received at court, and confirmed in the stewardship 
of the monasteries, after the disgrace of his master. His office 
brought him often into personal conference with the king ; and, at 
one of these, he recommended him to deny the authority of the 
pope altogether, and declare himself supreme head of the church. 
The boldness of this advice was congenial to the temper of the 



CHAP. IV.] QUARREL WITH THE POPE. 53 

king, worried by the opposition of Rome to his intended divorce, 
and Cromwell became a member of the privy council. His 
fortune was thus made by his seasonable advice. All who opposed 
the king were sure to fall, and all who favored him were sure 
to rise, as must ever be the case in an absolute monarchy, where 
the king is the centre and the fountain of all honor and dignity. 

With such ministers as Cranmer and Cromwell, the measures 
of Henry were now prompt and bold. Queen Catharine was soon 
disposed of ; she was divorced and disgraced, and Anne Boleyn 
was elevated to her throne, (1533.) The anathemas of the pope 
and the outcry of all Europe followed. Sir Thomas More 
resigned his seals, and retired to poverty and solitude. But he 
was not permitted to enjoy his retirement long. Refusing to take 
the oath of supremacy to Henrys as head of the church as well as 
of the state, he was executed, with other illustrious Catholics. 
The execution of More was the most cruet and uncalled-for act 
of the whole reign, and entailed on its author the execrations of 
all the learned and virtuous men in Europe, most of whom appre- 
ciated the transcendent excellences of the murdered chancellor, 
the author of the Utopia, and the Boethius of his age. 

The fulminations of the pope only excited Henry to more 
decided opposition. The parliament, controlled by Cromwell, 
acknowledged him as the supreme head of the Church of England, 
and the separation from Rome was final and irrevocable. The 
first fruits of the tenths were annexed to the crown, and the bishops 
took a new oath of supremacy. 

The independence of the Church of England, effected in 1535, 
was followed by important consequences, and was the first step 
to the reformation, afterwards perfected by Edward VI. But as 
the first acts of the reformation were prompted by political con- 
siderations, the reformers in England, during the reign of Henry 
VIII., should be considered chiefly in a political point of view. 
The separation from Rome, during the reign of this prince, was 
not followed by the abolition of the Roman Catholic worship, 
nor any of the rites and ceremonies of that church. Nor was 
religious toleration secured. Every thing was subservient to the 
royal conscience, and a secular, instead of an ecclesiastical pope, 
still reigned in England. 

5* 



54 ABOLITION OF MONASTERIES. [CHAP. IV. 

Henry soon found that his new position, as head of the English 
Church, imposed new duties and cares : he therefore established a 
separate department for the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, over 
which he placed the unscrupulous, but energetic Cromwell — a fit 
minister to such a monarch. A layman, who hated the clergy, 
and who looked solely to the pecuniary interests of his master, 
was thus placed over the highest prelates of the church. But 
Cromwell, in consulting the pecuniary interests of the king, also 
had an eye to the political interests of the kingdom. He was a 
sagacious and practical man of the world, and was disgusted with 
the vices of the clergy, and especially with the custom of sending 
money to Rome, in the shape of annates and taxes. This evil 
he remedied, which tended greatly to enrich the country, for the 
popes at this time were peculiarly extortionate. He then turned 
his attention to the reform of the whole monastic institution, but 
with an eye also to its entire destruction. Cromwell hated the 
monks. They were lazy, ignorant, and debauched. They were 
a great burden on the people, and were as insolent and proud as 
they were idle and profligate. The country swarmed with them. 
The roads, taverns, and the houses of the credulous were infested 
with them. Cranmer, who sympathized with the German reform- 
ers, hated them on religious grounds, and readily cooperated with 
Cromwell ; while the king, whose extortion and rapacity knew no 
bounds, listened, with glistening eye, to the suggestions of his two 
favorite ministers. The nation was suddenly astounded with the 
intelligence that parliament had passed a bill, giving to the king 
and his heirs all the monastic establishments in the kingdom, which 
did not exceed two hundred pounds a year. Three hundred and 
eighty thus fell at a blow, whereby the king was enriched by 
thirty-two thousand pounds a year, and one hundred thousand 
pounds ready money — an immense sum in that age. By this 
spoliation, perhaps called for, but exceeding unjust and harsh, and 
in violation of all the rights of property, thousands were reduced 
to beggary and misery, while there was scarcely an eminent man 
in the kingdom who did not come in for a share of the plunder. 
Vast grants of lands were bestowed by the king on his favorites 
and courtiers, in order to appease the nation ; and thus the founda- 
tions of many of the great estates of the English nobility were 



CHAP. IV.] SUPPRESSION OF MONASTERIES. 55 

laid. The spoliations, however, led to many serious riots and 
insurrections, especially in Lincolnshire. At one place there were 
forty thousand rebels under arms ; but they were easily suppressed. 

The rapacious king was not satisfied with the plunder he had 
secured, and, in 1539, the final suppression of all the monasteries 
in England was decreed. Then followed the seizure of all the 
church property in England connected with monasteries — shrines, 
relics, gold and silver vessels of immense value and rarity, lands, 
and churches. Canterbury, Bath, Merton, Stratford, Bury St. 
Edmonds, Glastonbury, and St. Albans, suffered most, and those 
beautiful monuments of Gothic architecture were levelled with the 
dust. Their destruction deprived the people of many physical 
accommodations, for they had been hospitals and caravansaries, as 
well as " cages of unclean birds." Neither the church nor the 
universities profited much from the confiscation of so much prop- 
erty, and only six new bishoprics were formed, and only fourteen 
abbeys were converted into cathedrals and collegiate churches. 
The king and the nobles were the only gainers by the spoil ; the 
people obtained no advantage in that age, although they have in 
succeeding ages. 

After renouncing the pope's supremacy, and suppressing the 
monasteries, where were collected the treasures of the middle ages, 
one would naturally suppose that the king would have gone farther, 
and changed the religion of his people. But Henry hated Luther 
and his doctrines, and did not hate the pope, or the religion of 
which he was the sovereign pontiff. He loved gold and new 
wives better than the interests of the Catholic church. Reform 
proceeded no farther in his reign ; while, on the other hand, he 
caused a decree to pass both houses of his timid, complying par- 
liament, by which the doctrines of transubstantiation, the com- 
munion of one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, masses, and auric- 
ular confession, were established ; and any departure from, or denial 
of, these subjected the offender to the punishment of death. 

But Henry had new domestic difficulties long before the sup- 
pression of monasteries — the great political act of Thomas Crom- 
well. His new wife, Anne Boleyn, was suspected of the crime of 
inconstancy, and at the very time when she had reached the 
summit of power, and the gratification of all worldly wishes. She 



56 EXECUTION OF ANNE BOLEYN. [CHAP. IV. 

had been veiy vain, and fond of display and of ornaments ; but 
the latter years oi* her life were marked by her munificence, and 
attachment to the reform doctrines. But her power ceased almost 
as soon as she became queen. She could win, but she could not 
retain, the affections of her royal husband. His passion subsided 
into languor, and ended in disgust. The beauty of Anne Boleyn 
was soon forgotten when Jane Seymour, her maid of honor, 
attracted the attention of Henry. To make this lady his wife now 
became the object of his life, and this could only be effected by 
the divorce of his queen, who gave occasion for scandal by the 
levity and freedom of her manners. Henry believed every insin- 
uation against her, because he wished to believe her guilty. There 
was but a step between the belief of guilt and the resolution to 
destroy her. She was committed to the Tower, impeached, brought 
to trial, condemned without evidence, and executed without re- 
morse. Even Cranmer, whom she had honored and befriended, 
dared not defend her, although he must. have believed in her inno- 
cence. He knew the temper of the master whom he served too well 
to risk much in her defence. She was the first woman who had been 
beheaded in the annals of England. Not one of the Plantagenet 
kings ever murdered a woman. But the age of chivalry was past, 
and the sentiments it encouraged found no response in the bosom 
of such a sensual and vindictive monarch as was Henry VIII. 

The very day after the execution of that accomplished lady, for 
whose sake the king had squandered the treasures of his kingdom, 
and had kept Christendom in a ferment, he married Jane Seymour, 
" the fairest, discreetest, and most meritorious of all his wives," as 
the historians say, yet a woman who did not hesitate to steal the 
affections of Henry and receive his addresses, while his queen was 
devoted to her husband. But Anne Boleyn had done so before 
her, and suffered a natural retribution. 

Jane Seymour lived only eighteen months after her marriage, 
and died two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward 
VI. She was one of those passive women who make neither 
friends nor enemies. She indulged in no wit or repartee, like her 
brilliant but less beautiful predecessor, and she passed her regal 
life without uttering a sentence or a sentiment which has been 
deemed worthy of preservation. 



CHAP. IV.] ANNE OF CLEVES CATHARINE HOWARD. 57 

She had been dead about a month, when the king looked round 
for another wife, and besought Francis I. to send the most beauti- 
ful ladies of his kingdom to Calais, that he might there inspect 
them, and select one according to his taste. But this Oriental 
notion was not indulged by the French king, who had more taste 
and delicacy ; and Henry remained without a wife for more than 
two years, the princesses of Europe not being very eager to 
put themselves in the power of this royal Bluebeard. At last, at 
the suggestion of Cromwell, he was affianced to Anne, daughter 
of the Duke of Cleves, whose home was on the banks of the 
Rhine, in the city of Dusseldorf. 

The king no sooner set his eyes on her than he was disappointed 
and disgusted, and gave vent to his feelings before Cromwell, 
calling her a " great Flanders mare." Nevertheless, he consum- 
mated his marriage, although his disgust constantly increased. 
This mistake of Cromwell was fatal to his ambitious hopes. The 
king vented on him all the displeasure which had been gathering 
in his embittered soul. Cromwell's doom was sealed. He had 
offended an absolute monarch. He was accused of heresy and 
treason, — the common accusations in that age against men devoted 
to destruction, — tried by a servile board of judges, condemned, and 
judicially murdered, in 1540. In his misfortunes, he showed no 
more fortitude than Wolsey. The atmosphere of a court is fatal 
to all moral elevation. 

But, before his execution, Anne of Cleves, a virtuous and 
worthy woman, was divorced, and Catharine Howard, grand- 
daughter of the victor of Flodden Field, became queen of Eng- 
land. The king now fancied that his domestic felicity was com- 
plete ; but, soon after hi& marriage, it was discovered that his wife 
had formerly led a dissolute life, and had been unfaithful also to 
her royal master. When the proofs of her incontinence were 
presented to him, he burst into a flood of tears ; but soon his natu- 
ural ferocity returned, and his guilty wife expiated her crime by 
death on the scaffold, in 1542. 

Henry's sixth and last wife was Catharine Parr, relict of Lord 
Latimer, a woman of great sagacity, prudence, and good sense. 
She favored the reformers, but had sufficient address to keep hei 
opinions from the king, who would have executed her, had he 



58 LAST DAYS OF HENRY. [CHAP. IV. 

suspected her real views. She survived her husband, who died 
four years after her marriage, in 1547. 

The last years of any tyrant are always melancholy, and those 
of Henry were embittered by jealousies and domestic troubles. 
His finances were deranged, his treasuiy exhausted, and his sub- 
jects discontented. He was often at war with the Scots, and 
different continental powers. He added religious persecution to 
his other bad traits, and executed, for their opinions, some of the 
best people in the kingdom. His father had left him the richest 
sovereign of Europe^ and he had seized the abbey lands, and 
extorted heavy sums from his oppressed people ; and yet he was 
poor. All his wishes were apparently gratified ; and yet he was 
the most miserable man in his dominions. He exhausted all the 
sources of pleasure, and nothing remained but satiety and disgust. 
His mind and his body were alike diseased. His inordinate glut- 
tony made him most inconveniently corpulent, and produced ulcers 
and the gout. It was dangerous to approach this " corrupt mass 
of dying tyranny." It was impossible to please him, and the 
least contradiction drove him into fits of madness and frenzy. 

In his latter days, he ordered, in a fit of jealousy, the execution 
of the Duke of Norfolk, the first nobleman of the kingdom, who 
had given offence to the Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young 
prince of Wales, and the founder of the greatness of the Sey- 
mours. But the tyrant died before the sentence was carried into 
effect, much to the joy of the good people of England, whom he 
had robbed and massacred. Several thousands perished by the axe 
of the executioner during his disgraceful reign, and some of them 
were the lights of the age, and the glory of their country. 

Tyrannical as was Henry VIII., still he ever ruled by the laws. 
He did not abolish parliament, or retrench its privileges. The 
parliament authorized all his taxes, and gave sanction to all his 
violent measures. The parliament was his supple instrument ; 
still, had the parliament resisted his will, doubtless he would have 
dissolved it, as did the Stuart princes. But it was not, in his reign, 
prepared for resistance, and the king had every thing after his 
own way. 

By nature, he was amiable, generous, and munificent. But his 
temper was spoiled by self-indulgence and incessant flattery. 



CHAP. IV.] DEATH OF HENRY VIII. 59 

The moroseness he exhibited in his latter days was partly the 
effect of physical disease, brought about, indeed, by intemperance 
and gluttony. He was faithful to his wives, so long as he lived 
with them ; and, while he doted on them, listened to their advice. 
But few of his advisers dared tell him the truth ; and Cranmer 
himself can never be exculpated from flattering his perverted 
conscience. No one had the courage to tell him he was dying 
but one of the nobles of the court. He died, in great agony, June, 
1547, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, and the fifty-sixth of 
his age, and was buried, with great pomp, in St. George Chapel, 
Windsor Castle. 



References. — The best English histories of the reign of Henry Yin, 
are the standard ones of Hume and Lrngard. The Pictorial History, in 
spite of its pictures, is also excellent. Burnet should be consulted in 
reference to ecclesiastical matters, and Hallam, in reference to the consti- 
tution. See also the lives of Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, and Cranmer. 
The lives of Henry's queens have been best narrated by Agnes Strickland, 



60 WAR WITH SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V. 

4 

CHAPTER V. 

EDWARD VI. AND MARY. 

Heney VIII. was succeeded by his son, Edward VI., a boy of 
nine years of age, learned, pious, and precocious. Still he was 
a boy ; and, as such, was a king but in name. The history of his 
reign is the history of the acts of his ministers. 

The late king left a will, appointing sixteen persons, mostly 
members of his council, to be guardians of his son, and rulers of 
the nation during his minority. The Earl of Hertford, being 
uncle of the king, was unanimously named protector. 

The first thing the council did was to look after themselves, 
that is, to give themselves titles and revenues. Hertford became 
Duke of Somerset ; Essex, Marquis of Northampton ; Lisle, Earl 
of Warwick ; the Chancellor Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. 
At the head of these nobles was Somerset. He was a Protestant, 
and therefore prosecuted those reforms which Cranmer had before 
projected. Cranmer, as member of the council, archbishop of 
Canterbury, and friend of Somerset, had ample scope to prose- 
cute his measures. 

The history of this reign is not important in a political point of 
view, and relates chiefly to the completion of the reformation, and 
to the squabbles and jealousies of the great lords who formed the 
council of regency. 

The most important event, of a political character, was a war 
with Scotland, growing out of the attempts of the late king to 
unite both nations under one government. In consequence, Scot- 
land was invaded by the Duke of Somerset, at the head of eighteen 
thousand men. A great battle was fought, in which ten thousand 
of the Scots were slain. But the protector was compelled to 
return to England, without following up the fruits of victory, in 
consequence of cabals at court. His brother, Lord Seymour, a 
man of reckless ambition, had married the queen dowager, and 
openly aspired to the government of the kingdom. He endeav- 



CHAP. V.] REBELLIONS AND DISCONTENTS. 61 

ored to seduce the youthful king, and he had provided arms for 
ten thousand men. 

The protector sought to win his brother from his treasonable 
designs by kindness and favors ; but, all his measures proving 
ineffectual, he was arrested, tried, and executed, for high 
treason. 

But Somerset had a more dangerous enemy than his brother ; 
and this was the Earl of Warwick, who obtained great popularity 
by his suppression of a dangerous insurrection, the greatest the 
country had witnessed since Jack Cade's rebellion, one hundred 
years before. The discontent of the people appears to have 
arisen from their actual suffering. Coin had depreciated, 
without a corresponding rise of wages, and labor was cheap, 
because tillage lands were converted to pasturage. The popular 
discontent was aggravated by the changes which the reformers 
introduced, and which the peasantry were the last to appreciate. 
The priests and ejected monks increased the discontent, until it 
broke out into a flame. 

The protector made himself unpopular with the council by a 
law which he caused to be passed against enclosures ; and, as he 
lost influence, his great rival, Warwick, gained power. Somerset, 
at last, was obliged to resign his protectorship ; and Warwick, who 
had suppressed the rebellion, formed the chief of a new council 
of regency. He was a man of greater talents than Somerset, and 
equal ambition, and more fitted for stormy times. 

As soon as his power was established, and the country was at 
peace, and he had gained friends, he began to execute those 
projects of ambition which he had long formed. The earldom of 
Northumberland having reverted to the crown, Warwick aspired 
to the extinct title and the estates, and procured for himself a 
grant of the same, with the title of duke. But there still remained 
a bar to his elevation ; and this was the opposition of the Duke of 
Somerset, who, though disgraced and unpopular, was still power- 
ful. It is unfortunate to be in the way of a great man's career, 
and Somerset paid the penalty of his opposition — the common 
fate of unsuccessful rivals in unsettled times. He was accused of 
treason, condemned, and executed, (1552.) 

Northumberland, as the new dictator, seemed to have attained 
6 



62 RIVALRY OF THE GREAT NOBLES. [cHAP. V. 

the highest elevation to which a subject could aspire. In rank, 
power, and property, he was second only to the royal family ; 
but his ambition knew no bounds, and he began his intrigues to 
induce the young king, whose health was rapidly failing, and who 
was zealously attached to Protestantism, to set aside the succession 
of his sister Mary to the throne, really in view of the danger to 
which the reformers would be subjected, but under pretence of 
her declared ^legitimacy, which would also set aside the claims 
of the Princess Elizabeth. Mary, Queen of Scots, was to be set 
aside on the ground of the will of the late king, and the succession 
would therefore devolve on the Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter 
of the Duke of Suffolk and of the French queen, whom he hoped 
to unite in marriage with his son. This was a deeply-laid scheme, 
and came near being successful, since Edward listened to it with 
pleasure. Northumberland then sought to gain over the judges 
and other persons of distinction, and succeeded by bribery and 
intimidation. At this juncture, the young king died, possessed of 
all the accomplishments which could grace a youth of sixteen, 
but still a tool in the hands of his ministers. 

Such were the political movements of this reign — memorable 
for the rivalries of the great nobles. But it is chiefly distin- 
guished for the changes which were made in the church estab- 
lishment, and the introduction of the principles of the continental 
reformers. No changes of importance were ever made beyond 
what Cranmer and his associates effected. Indeed, all that an abso- 
lute monarch could do, was done, and done with prudence, sagacity, 
and moderation. The people quietly — except in some rural dis- 
tricts — acquiesced in the change. Most of the clergy took the 
new oath of allegiance to Edward VI., as supreme head of the 
church ; and very few suffered from religious persecution. There 
is no period in English history when such important changes were 
made, with so little bloodshed. Cranmer always watched the tem- 
per of the nation, and did nothing without great caution. Still a 
great change was effected — no less than a complete change from 
Romanism to Protestantism. But it was not so radical a reform as 
the Puritans subsequently desired, since the hierarchy and a 
liturgy, and clerical badges and dresses, were retained. It was 
the fortune of Cranmer, during the six years of Edward's reign, 



CHAP. V.] RELIGIOUS REFORMS. 63 

to effect the two great objects of which the English church has ever 
since been proud — the removal of Roman abuses, and the estab- 
lishment of the creed of Luther and Calvin ; and this without 
sweeping away the union of church and state, which, indeed, was 
more intimate than before the reformation. The papal power was 
completely subverted. Nothing more remained to be done by 
Cranmer. He had compiled the Book of Common Prayer, abol- 
ished the old Latin service, the worship of images, the ceremony 
of the mass, and auricular confessions. He turned the altars into 
communion tables, set up the singing of psalms in the service, 
caused the communion to be administered in both kinds to the 
laity, added the litany to the ritual, prepared a book of homilies 
for the clergy, invited learned men to settle in England, and 
magnificently endowed schools and universities. 

The Reformation is divested of much interest, since it was the 
work of authority, rather than the result of popular convictions. 
But Cranmer won immortal honor for his skilful management, and 
for making no more changes than he could sustain. A large part 
of the English nation still regard his works as perfect, and are 
sincerely and enthusiastically attached to the form which he gave 
to his church. 

The hopes of his party were suddenly dispelled by the death 
of the amiable prince whom he controlled, 6th of July, 1553. 
The succession to the throne fell to the Princess Mary, or, as 
princesses were then called, the Lady Mary ; nor could all the 
arts of Northumberland exclude her from the enjoyment of her 
rights. This ambitious nobleman contrived to keep the death of 
Edward VI. a secret two days, and secure from the Mayor and 
Alderman of London a promise to respect the will of the late 
king. In consequence, the Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed 
Queen of England. " So far was she from any desire of this 
advancement, that she began to act her part of royalty with 
many tears, thus plainly showing to those who had access to her, 
that she was forced by her relations and friends to this high, but- 
dangerous post." She was accomplished, beautiful, and amiable, 
devoted to her young husband, and very fond of Plato, whom she 
read in the original. 

But Mary's friends exerted themselves, and her cause — the 



64 EXECUTION OF NORTHUMBERLAND. [CHAP. V. 

cause of legitimacy, rather than that of Catholicism — gained 
ground. Northumberland was unequal to this crisis, and he was 
very feebly sustained. His forces were suppressed, his schemes 
failed, and his hopes fled. From rebellion, to the scaffold, there is 
but a step ; and this great nobleman suffered the fate of Somerset, 
his former rival. His execution confirms one of the most striking 
facts in the history of absolute monarchies, when the idea of 
legitimacy is firmly impressed on the national mind ; and that is, 
that no subject, or confederacy of subjects, however powerful, 
stand much chance in resisting the claims or the will of a legiti- 
mate prince. A nod or a word, from such a king, can consign 
the greatest noble to hopeless impotence. And he can do this 
from the mighty and mysterious force of ideas alone. Neither 
king nor parliament can ever resist the omnipotence of popular 
ideas. When ideas establish despots on their thrones, they are 
safe. When ideas demand their dethronement, no forces can 
long sustain them. The age of Queen Mary was the period of 
the most unchecked absolutism in England. Mary was appa- 
rently a powerless woman when Lady Jane Grey was pro- 
claimed queen by the party of Northumberland, and still she had 
but to signify her intentions to claim her rights, and the nation 
was prostrate at her feet. The Protestant party dreaded her 
accession ; but loyalty was a stronger principle than even Protes- 
tantism, and she was soon firmly established in the absolute throne 
of Henry VIII. 

Then almost immediately followed a total change in the admin- 
istration, which affected both the political and religious state of 
the country. Those who had languished in confinement, on 
account of their religion, obtained their liberty, and were elevated 
to power. Gardiner, Bonner, and other Catholic bishops, were 
restored to their sees, while Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, 
Coverdale, and other eminent Protestants, were imprisoned. All 
the statutes of Edward VI. pertaining to religion were repealed, 
and the queen sent assurances to the pope of her allegiance to his 
see. Cardinal Pole, descended from the royal family of Eng- 
land, and a man of great probity, moderation, and worth, was 
sent as legate of the pope. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was 
made lord chancellor, and became the prime minister. He and 



CHAP. V.] MARRIAGE OF THE QUEEX. 65 

his associates recommended violent councils ; and a reign, unpar- 
alleled in England for religious persecution, commenced. 

Soon after the queen's accession, she married Philip, son of 
the Emperor Charles, and heir of the Spanish monarchy. This 
marriage, brought about by the intrigues of the emperor, and 
favored by the Catholic party, was quite acceptable to Mary, 
whose issue would inherit the thrones of Spain and England. 
But ambitious matches are seldom happy, especially when the 
wife is much older than the husband, as was the fact in this 
instance. Mary, however, was attached to Philip, although he 
treated her with great indifference. 

This Spanish match, the most brilliant of that age, failed, how- 
ever, to satisfy the English, who had no notion of becoming the 
subjects of the King of Spain. In consequence of this disaffec- 
tion, a rebellion broke out, in which Sir Thomas Wyatt was the 
most conspicuous, and in which the Duke of Suffolk, and even the 
Lady Jane and her husband, were implicated, though unjustly. 
The rebellion was easily suppressed, and the leaders sent to the 
Tower. Then followed one of the most melancholy executions of 
this reign — that of the Lady Jane Grey, who had been reprieved 
three months before. The queen urged the plea of self-defence, 
and the safety of the realm — the same that Queen Elizabeth, in 
after times, made in reference to the Queen of the Scots. Her 
unfortunate fate excited great popular compassion, and she suf- 
fered with a martyr's constancy, and also her husband — two 
illustrious victims, sacrificed in consequence of the ambition of 
their relatives, and the jealousy of the queen. The Duke of 
Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane, was also executed, and deserved 
his fate, according to the ideas of his age. The Princess Eliz- 
abeth expected also to be sacrificed, both because she was a 
Protestant and the next heiress to the throne. But she carefully 
avoided giving any offence, and managed with such consummate 
prudence, that she was preserved for the future glory and welfare 
of the realm. 

The year 1555 opened gloomily for the Protestants. The 
prisons were all crowded with the victims of religious persecu- 
tion, and bigoted inquisitors had only to prepare their fagots 
and stakes. Nine thousand ministers were ejected from their 
6* 



66 RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. [CHAP. V. 

livings, and such as escaped further persecution fled to the con- 
tinent. No fewer than two hundred and eighty-eight persons, among 
whom were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, fifty-five women, 
and four children, were burned for religious opinions, besides many 
thousands who suffered various other forms of persecution. The 
constancy of Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper has immortalized their 
names on the list of illustrious martyrs ; but the greatest of all 
the victims was Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbuiy. The most 
artful and insinuating promises were held out to him, to induce 
Kim to retract. Life and dignities were promised him, if he 
would consent to betray his cause. In an evil hour, he yielded to 
the temptation, and consented to sell his soul. Timid, heart- 
broken, and old, the love of life and the fear of death were 
stronger than the voice of conscience and his duty to his God. 
But, when he found he was mocked, he came to himself, and suf- 
fered patiently and heroically. His death was glorious, as his life 
was useful ; and the sincerity of his repentance redeemed his 
memory from shame. Cranmer may be considered as the great 
author of the English Reformation, and one of the most worthy 
and enlightened men of his age ; but he was timid, politic, and 
time-serving. The Reformation produced no perfect characters 
in any country. Some great defect blemished the lives of all the 
illustrious men who have justly earned imperishable glory. But 
the character of such men as Cranmer, and Ridley, and Latimer, 
present an interesting contrast to those of Gardiner and Bonner. 
The former did show, however, some lenity in the latter years of 
this reign of Mary ; but the latter, the Bishop of London, gloated 
to the last in the blood which he caused to be shed. He even 
whipped the Protestant prisoners with his own hands, and once 
pulled out the beard of an heretical weaver, and held his finger in 
the flame of a candle, till the veins shrunk and burnt, that he 
might realize what the pain of burning was. So blind and cruel 
is religious intolerance. 

But Providence ordered that the religious persecution, which is 
attributed to Mary, but which,, in strict justice, should be ascribed 
to her counsellors and ministers, should prepare the way for a 
popular and a spiritual movement in the subsequent reign. The 
fires of Smithfield, and the cruelties of the pillory and the prison, 



CHAP. V.] CHARACTER OF MARY. 67 

opened the eyes of the nation to the spirit of the old religion, and 
also caused the flight of many distinguished men to Frankfort and 
Geneva, where they learned the principles of both religious and 
civil liberty. " The blood of martyrs proved the seed of the 
church " — a sublime truth, revealed to Cranmer and Ridley amid 
the fires which consumed their venerable bodies; and not to them 
merely, but to all who witnessed their serenity, and heard their 
shouts of triumph when this mortal passed to immortality. Her- 
etics increased with the progress of persecution, and firm conviction 
took the place of a blind confession of dogmas. " It was not," 
says Milman, " until Christ was lain in his rock-hewn sepulchre, that 
the history of Christianity commenced." We might add, it was 
not until the fires of Smithfield were lighted, that great spiritual 
ideas took hold of the popular mind, and the intense religious 
earnestness appeared which has so often characterized the English 
nation. The progress which man makes is generally seen through 
disaster, suffering, and sorrow. This is one of the fundamental 
truths which history teaches. 

The last years of the reign of Mary were miserable to herself, 
and disastrous to the nation. Her royal husband did not return 
her warm affections, and left England forever. She embarked 
in a ruinous war with France, and gained nothing but disgrace. 
Her health failed, and her disposition became gloomy. She con- 
tinued, to the last, most intolerant in her religious opinions, and 
thought more of restoring Romanism, than of promoting the inter- 
ests of her kingdom. Her heart was bruised and broken, and her 
life was a succession of sorrows. It is fashionable to call this 
unfortunate queen the " bloody Mary," and not allow her a single 
virtue ; but she was affectionate, sincere, high-minded, and shrunk 
from the dissimulation and intrigue which characterized "• the virgin 
queen " — the name given to her masculine but energetic suc- 
cessor. Mary was capable of the warmest friendship ; was atten- 
tive and considerate to her servants, charitable to the poor, and 
sympathetic with the unfortunate, when not blinded by her religious 
prejudices. She had many accomplishments, and a very severe 
taste, and was not addicted to oaths, as was Queen Elizabeth and 
her royal father. She was, however, a bigoted Catholic ; and how 
could partisan historians see or acknowledge her merits ? 



68 ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH. [CHAP. V. 

But her reign was disastrous, and the nation hailed with enthu- 
siasm the accession of Elizabeth, on the 17th of November, 1558. 
With her reign commences a new epoch, even in the history of 
Europe. Who does not talk of the Elizabethan era, when Protes- 
tantism was established in England, when illustrious poets and phi- 
losophers adorned the literature of the country, when commerce 
and arts received a great impulse, when the colonies in North 
America were settled, and when a constellation of great statesmen 
raised England to a pitch of glory not before attained ? 



References. — See Hume's, and Lingard's, and other standard Histo- 
ries of England ; Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England ; 
Burnet's History of the Reformation ; Life of Cranmer ; Fox's Book of 
Martyrs. These works contain all the easily-accessible information re- 
specting the reigns of Edward and Mary, which is important. 



CHAP. VI.] MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 69 

CHAPTER VI. 

ELIZABETH. 

Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII., by Anne Boleyn, was in 
her twenty-sixth year when she ascended the throne. She was 
crowned the 15th of June, 1559, and soon assembled her parlia- 
ment and selected her ministers. After establishing her own 
legitimacy, she set about settling the affairs of the church, but 
only restored the Protestant religion as Cranmer had left it. In- 
deed, she ever retained a fondness for ceremonial, and abhorred a 
reform spirit among the people. She insisted on her supremacy, 
as head of the church, and on conformity with her royal conscience. 
But she was not severe on the Catholics, and even the gluttonous 
and vindictive Bonner was permitted to end his days in peace. 

As soon as the Protestant religion was established, the queen 
turned her attention towards Scotland, from which much trouble 
was expected. 

Scotland was then governed by Mary, daughter of James V., 
and had succeeded her father while a mere infant, eight days after 
her birth, (1542.) In 1558, she married the dauphin, afterwards 
King of France, by which marriage she was Queen of France as 
well as of Scotland. 

According to every canonical law of the Roman church, the 
claim of Mary Stuart to the English throne was preferable to that 
of her cousin Elizabeth. Her uncles, the Guises, represented 
that Anne Boleyn's marriage had never been lawful, and that Eliza- 
beth was therefore illegitimate. In an evil hour, she and her hus- 
band quartered the arms of England with their own, and assumed 
the titles of King and Queen of Scotland and England. And 
Elizabeth's indignation was further excited by the insult which the 
pope had inflicted, in declaring her birth illegitimate. She, there- 
fore, resolved to gratify, at once, both her ambition and her ven- 
geance, encouraged by her ministers, who wished to advance the 
Protestant interest in the kingdom. Accordingly, Elizabeth, with 



70 JOHN KNOX. [CHAP. VI. 

consummate art, undermined the authority of Mary in Scotland, 
now distracted hy religious as well as civil commotions. Mary 
was a Catholic, and had a perfect abhorrence and disgust of the 
opinions and customs of the reformers, especially of John Knox, 
whose influence in Scotland was almost druidical. The Catholics 
resolved to punish with fire and sword, while the Protestants were 
equally intent on defending themselves with the sword. And it so 
happened that some of the most powerful of the nobility were 
arrayed on the side of Protestantism. But the Scotch reformers 
were animated with a zeal unknown to Cranmer and his associates. 
The leaders had been trained at Geneva, under the guidance of 
Calvin, and had imbibed his opinions, and were, therefore, resolved 
to cany the work of reform after the model of the Genevan 
church. Accordingly, those pictures, and statues, and ornaments, 
and painted glass, and cathedrals, which Cranmer spared, were 
furiously destroyed by the Scotch reformers, who considered them 
as parts of an idolatrous worship. The antipathy to bishops and 
clerical vestments was equally strong, and a sweeping reform was 
carried on under the dictatorship of Knox. Elizabeth had no more 
sympathy with this bold, but uncouth, reformer and his movements, 
than had Maiy herself, and never could forgive him for his book, 
written at Geneva, aimed against female government, called the 
" First Blast of a Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of 
Women." But Knox cared not for either the English or the Scot- 
tish queens, and zealously and fearlessly prosecuted his work, and 
gained over to his side the moral strength of the kingdom. Of 
course, a Catholic queen resolved to suppress his doctrines ; but 
nearly the whole Scottish nobility rallied around his standard, 
marching with the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other. 
The queen brought in troops from France to support her insulted 
and tottering government, which only increased the zeal of the 
Protestant party, headed by the Earls of Argyle, Arran, Morton, 
and Glencairn, and James Stuart, Prior of St. Andrews, who styled 
themselves " Lords of the Congregation." A civil war now raged 
in Scotland, between the queen regent, who wished to suppress the 
national independence, and extinguish the Protestant religion, and 
the Protestants, who comprised a great part of the nation, and who 
were resolved on the utter extirpation of Romanism and the limi- 



CHAP. VI.] MARRIAGE OF MARY DARNLEY. 71 

tation of the regal power. The Lords of the Congregation implored 
the, aid of England, which Elizabeth was ready to grant, both 
from political and religious motives. The Protestant cause was in 
the ascendant, when the queen regent died, in 1560. The same 
year died Francis II. of France ; and Mary, now a widow, resolved 
to return to her own kingdom. She landed at Leith, August, 1561, 
and was received with the grandest demonstration of joy. For a 
time, affairs were tolerably tranquil, Mary having intrusted the 
great Protestant nobles with power. She was greatly annoyed, 
however, by Knox, who did not treat her with the respect due to 
a queen, and who called her Jezebel ; but the reformer escaped 
punishment on account of his great power. 

In 1565, Mary married her cousin, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl 
of Lennox, — a match exceedingly distasteful to Elizabeth, who was 
ever jealous of Mary, especially in matrimonial matters, since 
the Scottish queen had not renounced her pretensions to the throne 
of her grandfather, Henry VII. The character of Elizabeth now 
appears in its worst light ; and meanness and jealousy took the 
place of that magnanimity which her admirers have ascribed to 
her. She fomented disturbances in Scotland, and incited the 
queen's natural brother, the Prior of St. Andrews, now Earl of 
Murray, to rebellion, with the expectation of obtaining the govern- 
ment of the country. He formed a conspiracy to seize the per- 
sons of Mary and her husband. The plot was discovered, and 
Murray fled to England ; but it was still unremittingly pursued, till 
at length it was accomplished. 

Darnley, the consort of Mary, was a man of low tastes, profli- 
gate habits, and shallow understanding. Such a man could not 
long retain the affections of the most accomplished woman of her 
age, accustomed to flattery, and bent on pursuing her own pleasure, 
at any cost. Disgust and coldness therefore took place. Darnley, 
enraged at this increasing coldness, was taught to believe that he 
was supplanted in the queen's affections by an Italian favorite, the 
musician Kizzio, whom Maiy had made her secretary. He there- 
fore signed a bond, with certain lords, for the murder of the Italian, 
who seems to have been a man of no character. One evening, as 
the queen was at supper, in her private apartment, with the countess 
of Argyle and Bizzio, the Earl of Morton, with one hundred and 



72 BOTHWELL CIVIL WAR IN SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI. 

sixty men, took possession of the palace of Holyrood, while Darn- 
ley himself showed the way to a band of ruffians to the royal 
presence. Rizzio was barbarously murdered in the presence of 
the queen, who endeavored to protect him. 

Darnley, in thus perpetrating this shocking murder, was but the 
tool of some of the great lords, who wished to make him hateful 
to the queen, and to the nation, and thus prepare the way for his 
own execution. And they succeeded. A plot was contrived for 
the murder of Damley, of which Murray was probably the author. 
Shortly after, the house, in which he slept, was blown up by 
gunpowder, in the middle of the night. 

The public voice imputed to the Earl of Bothwell, a great favor- 
ite of the queen, the murder of Darnley. Nor did the queen herself 
escape suspicion. " But no inquiry or research," says Scott, " has 
ever been able to bring us either to that clear opinion upon the 
guilt of Mary which is expressed by many authors, or guide us to 
that triumphant conclusion in favor of her innocence of all acces- 
sion, direct or tacit, to the death of her husband, which others 
have maintained with the same obstinacy." But whatever doubt 
exists as to the queen's guilt, there is none respecting her minis- 
ters — Maitland, Huntley, Morton, and Argyle. Still they offered a 
reward of two thousand pounds for the discovery of the murderers. 
The public voice accused Bothwell as the principal : and yet the 
ministers associated with him, and the queen, entirely exculpated 
him. He was brought to a trial, on the formal accusation of the 
Earl of Lennox, in the city of Edinburgh, which he was permitted 
to obtain possession of. In a place guarded by his own followers, 
it was not safe for any witnesses to appear against him, and he 
was therefore acquitted, though the whole nation believed him 
guilty. 

Maiy was rash enough to marry, shortly after, the man whom 
public opinion pronounced to be the murderer of her husband ; and 
Murray, her brother, was so ambitious and treacherous, as to favor 
the marriage, with the hope that the unpopularity of the act would 
lead to the destruction of the queen, and place him at the helm of 
state. No sooner was Mary married to Bothwell, than Murray and 
other lords threw off the mask, pretended to be terribly indignant, 
took up arms against the queen, with the view of making her 



CHAP. VI.] CAPTIVITY OF QUEEN MARY. 73 

prisoner, and with the pretence of delivering her from her husband. 
Bothwell escaped to Norway, and the queen surrendered herself, 
at Carberry Hill, to the insurgent army, the chiefs of which in- 
stantly assumed the reins of government, and confined the queen 
in the castle of Lochleven, and treated her with excessive harsh- 
ness. Shortly after, (1567,) she resigned her crown to her infant 
son, and Murray, the prime mover of so many disturbances, be- 
came regent of the kingdom. Murray was a zealous Protestant, 
and had the support of Knox in all his measures, and the counte- 
nance of the English ministry. Abating his intrigue and ambition, 
he was a most estimable man, and deserved the affections of the 
nation, which he retained until his death. M'Crie, in his Life of 
Knox, represents him as a model of Christian virtue and integrity, 
and every way worthy of the place he held in the affections of his 
party. 

The unfortunate queen suffered great unkindness in her lonely 
confinement, and Knox, with the more zealous of his party, 
clamored for her death, as an adulteress and a murderer. She 
succeeded in escaping from her prison, raised an army, marched 
against the regent, was defeated at the battle of Langside, fled to 
England, and became, May, 1568, the prisoner-guest of her 
envious rival. Elizabeth obtained the object of her desires. But 
the captivity of Mary, confined in Tutbury Castle, against all the 
laws of hospitality and justice, gave rise to incessant disturbances, 
both in England and Scotland, until her execution, in 1587. And 
these form no inconsiderable part of the history of England for 
seventeen years. Scotland was the scene of anarchy, growing 
out of the contentions and jealousies of rival chieftains, who 
stooped to every crime that appeared to facilitate their objects. 
In 1570, the regent Murray was assassinated. He was succeeded 
by his enemy, the Earl of Lennox, who, in his turn, was shot by 
an assassin. The Earl of Mar succeeded him, but lived only a 
year. Morton became regent, the reward of his many crimes ; 
but retribution at last overtook him, being executed when James 
assumed the sovereignty. 

Meanwhile, the unfortunate Mary pined in hopeless captivity. 
It was natural for her to seek release, and also for her friends to 
help her. Among her friends was the Duke of Norfolk, the first 
7 



74 EXECUTION OF MARY. [CHAP. VI. 

nobleman in England, and a zealous Catholic. He aspired to 
her hand ; but Elizabeth chose to consider his courtship as a trea- 
sonable act, and Norfolk was arrested. On being afterwards 
released, he plotted for the liberation of Maiy, and his intrigues 
brought him to the block. The unfortunate captive, wearied and 
impatient, naturally sought the assistance of foreign powers. She 
had her agents in Rome, France, Spain, and the Low Countries. 
The Catholics in England espoused her cause, and a conspiracy 
was formed to deliver her, assassinate Elizabeth, and restore the 
Catholic religion. From the fact that Mary was privy to that part 
of it which concerned her own deliverance, she was brought to 
trial as a criminal, found guilty by a court incompetent to sit on 
her case, and executed without remorse, 8th February, 1587. 

Few persons have excited more commiseration than this unfor- 
tunate queen, both on account of her exalted rank, and her 
splendid intellectual accomplishments. Whatever obloquy she 
merited for her acts as queen of Scotland, no one can blame her 
ibr meditating escape from the power of her zealous but more 
fortunate rival ; and her execution is the greatest blot in the charac- 
ter of the queen of England, at this time in the zenith of her glory. 

Next to the troubles with Scotland growing out of the inter- 
ference of Elizabeth, the great political events of the reign were 
the long and protracted war with Spain, and the Irish rebellion. 
Both of these events were important. 

Spain was at this time governed by Philip II., son of the em- 
peror Charles, one of the most bigoted Catholics of the age, and 
allied with Catharine de Medicis of France for the entire sup- 
pression of Protestantism. She incited her son Charles IX. to the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, and he resolved to establish the 
inquisition in Flanders. This measure provoked an insurrection, 
to suppress which the Duke of Alva, one of the most celebrated of 
the generals of Charles V., was sent into the Netherlands with a 
large army, and almost unlimited powers. The cruelties of Alva 
were unparalleled. In six years, eighteen thousand persons perished 
by the hands of the executioner, and Alva counted on the entire 
suppression of Protestantism by the mere force of armies. He 
could count the physical resources of the people, but he could not 
estimate the degree of their resistance when animated by the 



CHAP. VI.] MILITARY PREPARATIONS OF PHILIP II. 75 

spirit of liberty or religion. Providence, too, takes care of those 
who strive to take care of themselves. A great leader appeared 
among the suffering Hollanders, almost driven to despair — the 
celebrated William of Nassau, Prince of Orange. He appeared 
as the champion of the oppressed and insulted people ; they rallied 
around his standard, fought with desperate bravery, opened the 
dikes upon their cultivated fields, expelled their invaders, and laid 
the foundation of their liberties. But they could not have with- 
stood the gigantic power of the Spanish monarchy, then in the 
fulness of its strength, and the most powerful in Europe, had it not 
been for aid rendered by Elizabeth. She compassionated their 
sufferings, and had respect for their cause. She entered into an 
alliance, defensive and offensive, and the Netherlands became the 
great theatre of war, even after they had thrown off the Spanish 
yoke. Although the United Provinces in the end obtained their 
liberty, they suffered incredible hardships, and lost some of the 
finest of their cities, Antwerp among the rest, long the rival of 
Amsterdam, and the scene of Rubens's labors. 

The assistance which Elizabeth rendered to the Hollanders, of 
course, provoked the resentment of Philip II. ; and this was in- 
creased by the legalized piracies of Sir Francis Drake, in the 
West Indies, and on the coasts of South America. This com- 
mander, in time of peace, insisted on a right to visit those ports 
which the Spaniards had closed, which, by the law of nations, is 
piracy. Philip, according to all political maxims, was forced to 
declare war with England, and he made immense preparations to 
subdue it. But the preparations of Elizabeth to resist the power- 
ful monarch were also great, and Drake performed brilliant ex- 
ploits on the sea, among other things, destroying one hundred 
ships in the Bay of Cadiz, and taking immense spoil. The prep- 
arations of the Spanish monarch were made on such a gigantic 
scale, that Elizabeth summoned a great council of war to meet the 
emergency, at which the all-accomplished Sir Walter Raleigh 
took a leading part. His advice was to meet the Spaniards on 
the sea. Although the royal navy consisted, at this time, of only 
thirty-six sail, such vigorous measures were prosecuted, that one 
hundred and ninety-one ships were "collected, manned by seven- 
teen thousand four hundred seamen. The merchants of London 



76 SPANISH ARMADA. [CHAP. VI. 

granted thirty ships and ten thousand men, and all England was 
aroused to meet tlje expected danger. Never was patriotism more 
signally evinced, never were more decisive proofs given of the 
popularity of a sovereign. Indeed, Elizabeth was always popular 
with the nation; and with all her ceremony, and state, and rude- 
ness to the commons, and with all their apparent servility, she 
never violated the laws, or irritated the people by oppressive 
exactions. Many acts of the Tudor princes seem to indicate the 
reign of despotism in England, but this despotism was never 
grievous, and had all the benignity of a paternal government. 
Capricious and arbitrary as Elizabeth was, in regard to some un- 
fortunate individuals who provoked her hatred or her jealousy, 
still she ever sedulously guarded the interests of the nation, and 
listened to the counsel of patriotic and able ministers. When 
England was threatened with a Spanish invasion, there was not a 
corner of the land which did not rise to protect a beloved sov- 
ereign ; nor was there a single spot, where a landing might be 
effected, around which an army of twenty thousand could not 
be rallied in forty-eight hours. 

But Philip, nevertheless, expected the complete conquest of 
England ; and, as his " Invincible Armada " of one hundred and 
thirty ships, left the mouth of the Tagus, commanded by Medina 
Sidonia, and manned by the noblest troops of Spain, he fancied 
his hour of triumph was at hand. But his hopes proved dreams, 
like most of the ambitious designs of men. The armada met with 
nothing but misfortunes, both from battle and from storms. Only 
fifty ships returned to Spain. An immense booty was divided 
among the English sailors, and Elizabeth sent, in her turn, a large 
fleet to Spain, the following year, (1589,) under the command of 
Drake, which, after burning a few towns, returned ingloriously to 
England, with a loss of ten thousand men. The war was con- 
tinued with various success till 1598, when a peace was negotiated. 
The same year, died Philip II., and Lord Burleigh, who, for forty 
years, directed the councils of Elizabeth, and to whose voice she 
ever listened, even when opposed by such favorites as Leicester 
and Essex. Burleigh was not a great genius, but was a man 
admirably adapted to his station and his times, — was cool, 
sagacious, politic, and pacific, skilful in the details of business. 



CHAP. VI.J IRISH REBELLION. 77 

competent to advise, but not aspiring to command. He was 
splendidly rewarded for his services, and left behind him three 
hundred distinct landed estates. 

Meanwhile the attention of the queen was directed to the affairs 
of Ireland, which had been conquered by Henry IL in the year 
1 170, but over which only an imperfect sovereignty had been 
exercised. The Irish princes and nobles, divided among them- 
selves, paid the exterior marks of obedience, but kept the country 
in a constant state of insurrection. 

The impolitic and romantic projects of the English princes for 
subduing France, prevented a due attention to Ireland, ever mis- 
erably governed. Elizabeth was the first of the English sov- 
ereigns to perceive the political importance of this island, and the 
necessity for the establishment of law and order. Besides furnish- 
ing governors of great capacity, she founded the university of 
Dublin, and attempted to civilize the half-barbarous people. Un- 
fortunately, she also sought to make them Protestants, against 
their will, which laid the foundation of many subsequent troubles, 
not yet removed. A spirit of discontent pervaded the country, 
and the people were ready for rebellion. Hugh O'Neale, the 
head of a powerful clan, and who had been raised to the dignity 
of Earl of Tyrone, yet attached to the barbarous license in which 
he had been early trained, fomented the popular discontents, and 
excited a dangerous rebellion. Hostilities, of the most sanguinary 
character, commenced. The queen sent over her favorite, the 
Earl of Essex, with an army of twenty thousand men, to crush 
the rebellion. He was a brave commander, but was totally unac- 
quainted with the country and the people he was expected to sub- 
due, and was, consequently, unsuccessful. But his successor, Lord 
Mountjoy, succeeded in restoring the queen's authority, though at 
the cost of four millions and a half, an immense sum in that age, 
while poor Ireland was devastated with fire and sword, and suffered 
every aggravation of accumulated calamities. 

Meanwhile, Essex, who had returned to England against the 
queen's orders, was treated with coldness, deprived of his employ- 
ments, and sentenced to be confined. This was more than the 
haughty favorite could bear, accustomed as he had been to royal 
favor. At first, he acquiesced in his punishment, with every mark 



78 THE EARL OF ESSEX. [CHAP. VI. 

of penitence, and Elizabeth was beginning to relax in her severity, 
for she never intgnded to ruin him ; but he soon gave vent to his 
violent temper, indulged in great liberties of speech, and threw off 
all appearance of duty and respect. He even engaged in trea- 
sonable designs, encouraged Roman Catholics at his house, and 
corresponded with James VI. of Scotland about his succession. 
His proceedings were discovered, and he was summoned before 
the privy council. Instead of obedience, he armed himself and 
his followers, and, in conjunction with some discontented nobles, 
and about three hundred gentlemen, attempted to excite an insur- 
rection in London, where he was very popular with the citizens. 
He was captured and committed to the Tower, with the Earl of 
Southampton. These rash but brave noblemen were tried by their 
peers, and condemned as guilty of high treason. In this trial, 
the celebrated Bacon appeared against his old patron, and likened 
him to the Duke of Guise. The great lawyer Coke, who was 
attorney-general, compared him to Catiline. 

Essex disdained to sue the queen for a pardon, and was pri- 
vately beheaded in the Tower. He merited his fate, if the offence 
of which he was guilty deserved such a punishment. It is impos- 
sible not to be interested in the fate of a man so brave, high-spir- 
ited, and generous, the, idol of the people, and the victor in so 
many enterprises. Some historians maintain that Elizabeth re- 
lented, and would have saved her favorite, had he only implored 
her clemency ; but this statement is denied by others ; nor have we 
any evidence to believe that Essex, caught with arms against the 
sovereign who had honored him, could have averted his fate. 

Elizabeth may have wept for the death of the nobleman she 
had loved. It is certain that, after his death, she never regained 
her spirits, and that a deep melancholy was visible in her counte- 
nance. All her actions showed a deeply-settled inward grief, and 
that she longed for death, having tasted the unsubstantial nature 
of human greatness. She survived the execution of Essex two 
years, but lived long enough to see the neglect into which she was 
every day falling, and to feel that, in spite of all her glory and 
power, she was not exempted from drinking the cup of bitterness. 

Whatever unamiable qualities she evinced as a woman, in spite 
of her vanity, and jealousy, and imperious temper, her reign was 



CHAP. VI.] CHARACTER OF ELIZABETH. 79 

one of the most glorious in the annals of her country. The policy 
of Burleigh was the policy of Sir Robert Walpole — that of peace, 
and a desire to increase the resources of the kingdom. Her taxes 
were never oppressive, and were raised without murmur ; the 
people were loyal and contented; the Protestant religion was 
established on a firm foundation ; and a constellation of great men 
shed around her throne the bright rays of immortal genius. 

The most unhappy peculiarity of her reign was the persecution 
of the Non-conformists, which, if not sanguinary, was irritating and 
severe. For some time after the accession of Elizabeth, the Puri- 
tans were permitted to indulge in their peculiarities, without being 
excluded from the established church ; but when Elizabeth felt 
herself secure, then they were obliged to conform, or suffered im- 
prisonment, fines, and other punishments. The original difficulty 
was their repugnance to the surplice, and to some few forms of 
worship, which gradually extended to an opposition to the order of 
bishops ; to the temporal dignities of the church ; to the various 
titles of the hierarchy ; to the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts ; to 
the promiscuous access of all persons to the communion table ; to 
the liturgy ; to the observance of holydays ; to the cathedral wor- 
ship ; to the use of organs ; to the presentation of living by patrons ; 
and finally, to some of the doctrines of the established church. 
The separation of the Puritans from the Episcopal church, took 
place in 1566 ; and, from that time to the death of Elizabeth, they 
enjoyed no peace, although they sought redress in the most 
respectful manner, and raised no opposition to the royal authority. 
Thousands were ejected from their livings, and otherwise punished, 
for not conforming to the royal conscience. But persecution and 
penal laws fanned a fanatical spirit, which, in the reign of Charles, 
burst out into a destructive flame, and spread devastation and ruin 
through all parts of the kingdom. 

If the queen and her ministers did not understand the principles 
of religious toleration, they pursued a much more enlightened policy 
in regard to all financial and political subjects, than during any 
former reign. The commercial importance of England received 
a new impulse. The reign of Henry VIII. was a reign of spolia- 
tion. The king was enriched beyond all former precedent, but 
his riches did not keep pace with his spendthrift habits. The 



80 IMPROVEMENTS MADE IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CHAP. VI. 

rental of the abbey lands which Henry seized amounted, a century 
after his death, to 4 six million pounds. The lands of the abbey of 
St. Alban's alone rented for two hundred thousand pounds. The 
king debased the coin, confiscated chapels and colleges, as well as 
monasteries, and raised money by embargoes, monopolies, and 
compulsory loans. 

But Elizabeth, instead of contracting debts, paid off the old 
ones, restored the coin to its purity, and was content with an 
annual revenue of five hundred thousand pounds, even at a time 
when the rebellion in Ireland cost her four hundred thousand 
pounds. Her frugality equalled the rapacity of her father, and 
she was extravagant only in dress, and on great occasions of pub- 
lic rejoicings. But her economy was a small matter compared 
with the wise laws which were passed respecting the trade of the 
country, by which commercial industry began to characterize the 
people. Improvements in navigation followed, and also maritime 
discoveries and colonial settlements. Sir Francis Drake circum- 
navigated the globe, and the East India Company was formed. 
Under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia was discovered 
and colonized. Unfortunately, also, the African slave trade com- 
menced — a traffic which has been productive of more human 
misery, and led to more disastrous political evils, than can be 
traced to any other event in the history of modern times. 

During this reign, the houses of the people became more com- 
fortable ; chimneys began to be used ; pewter dishes took the place 
of wooden trenchers, and wheat was substituted for rye and bar- 
ley ; linen and woollen cloth was manufactured ; salads, cabbages, 
gooseberries, apricots, pippins, currants, cherries, plums, carna- 
tions, and the damask rose were cultivated, for the first time. But 
the great glory of this reign was the revival of literature and 
science. Raleigh, " the soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the philoso- 
pher, the poet, the orator, the historian, the courtier," then adorned 
the court, and the prince of poets, the immortal Shakspeare, then 
wrote those plays, which, for moral wisdom and knowledge of the 
human soul, appear to us almost to be dictated by the voice of 
inspiration. The prince of philosophers too, the great miner and 
sapper of the false systems of the middle ages, Francis Bacon, 
then commenced his career, and Spenser dedicated to Elizabeth 



CHAP. VI.] REFLECTIONS. 81 

his " Fairy Queen," one of the most truly poetical compositions 
that genius ever produced. The age produced also great divines ; 
but these did not occupy so prominent a place in the nation's eye 
as during the succeeding reigns. 

While the virgin queen was exercising so benign an influence 
on the English nation, great events, though not disconnected with 
English politics, were taking place on the continent. The most 
remarkable of these was the persecution of the Huguenots. The 
rise and fortunes of this sect, during the reigns of Henry II., 
Francis II., Charles IX., Henry III., and Henry IV., now demand 
our attention. If a newspaper had, in that age, been conducted 
upon the principles it now is, the sufferings of the Huguenots 
would always be noticed. It is our province to describe just what 
a modern newspaper would have alluded to, had it been printed 
three hundred years ago. It would not have been filled With 
genealogies of kings, but with descriptions of great popular move- 
ments. And this is history. 



References. — For the history of this reign, see Hume, Lingard, 
and Hallam ; Miss Strickland's Queens of England ; Life of Mary, Queen 
of Scots; M'Crie's Life of Knox; Robertson's History of Scotland; 
Macaulay's Essay on Nares's Life of Burleigh ; Life of Sir Walter 
Raleigh; Neale's History of the Puritans. Kenilworth may also be 
profitably read. 



82 CATHAKINE DE MEDICIS. [CHAP. VII. 



4 

CHAPTER VII. 

FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY III., AND HENRY IV. 

The history of France, from the death of Francis I. to the 
accession of Henry IV. is virtually the history of religious conten- 
tions and persecutions, and of those civil wars which grew out of 
them. The Huguenotic contest, then, is a great historical subject, 
and will be presented in connection with the history of France, 
until the death of Henry IV., the greatest of the French monarchs, 
and long the illustrious head of the Protestant party. 

The reform doctrines first began to spread in France during the 
reign of Francis I. As early as 1523, he became a persecutor, 
and burned many at the stake, among whom the descendants of the 
Waldenses were the most numerous. In 1540, sentence was pro- 
nounced against them by the parliament of Aix. Their doctrines 
were the same in substance as those of the Swiss reformers. 

While this persecution was raging, John Calvin fled from 
France to Ferrara, from which city he proceeded to Geneva. 
This was in the year 1536, when his theological career com- 
menced by the publication of his Institutes, which were dedicated 
to Francis I., one of the most masterly theological works ever 
written, although compended from the writings of Augustine. The 
Institutes of Calvin, the great text-book of the Swiss and French 
reformers, were distasteful to the French king, and he gave fresh 
order for the persecution of the Protestants. Notwithstanding the 
hostility of Francis, the new doctrines spread, and were embraced 
by some of the most distinguished of the French nobility. The 
violence of persecution was not much arrested during the reign of 
Henry II., and, through the influence of the Cardinal of Lorraine, 
the inquisition was established in the kingdom. 

The wife of Henry II. was the celebrated Catharine de Medicis ; 
and she was bitterly opposed to the reform doctrines, and incited 
her husband to the most cruel atrocities. Francis II. continued 
the persecution, and his mother, Catharine, became virtually the 
ruler of the nation. 



CHAP. VII.] CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE. 83 

The power of the queen mother was much increased when 
Francis II. died, and when his brother, Charles IX., a boy of nine 
years of age, succeeded to the French crown. She exercised 
her power by the most unsparing religious persecution recorded in 
the history of modern Europe. There had been some hope that 
Protestantism would be established in France ; but it did not suc- 
ceed, owing to the violence of the persecution. It made, however, 
a desperate struggle before it was overcome. 

At the head of the Catholic party were the queen regent, the 
Cardinal of Lorraine, the Duke of Guise, his brother, and the Con- 
stable Montmorency. They had the support of the priesthood, of 
the Spaniards, and a great majority of the nation. 

The Protestants were headed by the King of Navarre, father of 
Henry IV., the Prince of Conde, his brother, and Admiral Coligny ; 
and they had the sympathy of the university, the parliaments, and 
the Protestants of Germany and England. 

Between these parties a struggle lasted for forty years, with 
various success. Persecution provoked resistance, but resistance 
did not lead to liberty. Civil war in France did not secure the 
object sought. Still the Protestants had hope, and, as they could 
always assemble a large army, they maintained their ground. 
Their conduct was not marked by the religious earnestness which 
characterized the Puritans, or by the same strength of religious 
principle. Moreover, political motives were mingled with religious. 
The contest was a struggle for the ascendency of rival chiefs, as 
well as for the establishment of reformed doctrines. The Bour- 
bons hated the Guises, and the Guises resolved to destroy the 
Bourbons. In the course of their rivalry and warfare, the Duke 
of Guise was assassinated, and the King of Navarre, as well as 
the Prince of Conde, were killed. 

Charles IX. was fourteen years of age when the young king of 
Navarre,— at that time sixteen years of age, — and his cousin, the 
Prince of Conde, became the acknowledged heads of the Prot- 
estant party. Their education was learned in the camp and 
the field of battle. 

Charles IX., under the influence of his hateful mother, finding 
that civil war only destroyed the resources of the country, without 
weakening the Protestants, made peace, but formed a plan for 



84 MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. [CHAP. VII. 

their extermination by treachery. In order to cover his designs, 
he gave his sister^ Margaret de Valois, in marriage to the King of 
Navarre, first prince of the blood, then nineteen years of age. 
Admiral Coligny was invited to Paris, and treated with distin- 
guished courtesy. 

It was during the festivities which succeeded the marriage of the 
King of Navarre that Coligny was murdered, and the signal for the 
horrid slaughter of St. Bartholomew was given. At midnight, 
August 23, 1572, the great bell at the Hotel de Ville began to 
toll ; torches were placed in the windows, chains were drawn 
across the streets, and armed bodies collected around the hotels. 
The doors of the houses were broken open, and neither age, con- 
dition, nor sex was spared, of such as were not distinguished by 
a white cross in the hat. The massacre at Paris was followed by 
one equally brutal in the provinces. Seventy thousand people 
were slain in cold blood. The King of Navarre and the Prince of 
Conde only escaped in consequence of their relationship with 
the king, and by renouncing the Protestant religion. 

Most of the European courts expressed their detestation of this 
foulest crime in the history of religious bigotry ; but the pope 
went in grand procession to his cathedral, and ordered a Te Deum 
to be sung in commemoration of an event which steeped his cause 
in infamy to the end of time. 

The Protestants, though nearly exterminated, again rallied, and 
the King of Navarre and his cousin the Prince of Conde escaped, 
renounced the religion which had been forced on them by fear of 
death, and prosecuted a bloody civil war, with the firm resolution 
of never abandoning it until religious liberty was guarantied. 

Meanwhile, Charles IX. died, as it was supposed, by poison. 
His last hours were wretched, and his remorse for the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew filled his soul with agony. He beheld spec- 
tres, and dreamed horrid dreams ; his imagination constantly saw 
heaps of livid bodies, and his ears were assailed with imaginary 
groans. He became melancholy and ferocious, while his kingdom 
became the prey of factions and insurrections. But he was a 
timid and irresolute king, and was but the tool of his infamous 
mother, the grand patroness of assassins, against whom, on his 
death bed, he cautioned the king of Navarre. 



CHAP. VII.] HENRY III. HENRY IV. 85 

He was succeeded by his brother, the King of Poland, under the 
title of Henry III. The persecutions of the Huguenots were 
renewed, and the old scenes of treachery, assassination, and war 
were acted over again. The cause of religion was lost sight of in 
the labyrinth of contentions, jealousies, and plots. Intrigues and 
factions were endless. Nearly all the leaders, on both sides, per- 
ished by the sword or the dagger. The Prince of Conde,the Duke 
of Guise, and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, were assassi- 
nated. Shortly after, died the chief mover of all the troubles, 
Catharine de Medicis, a woman of talents and persuasive elo- 
quence, but of most unprincipled ambition, perfidious, cruel, and 
dissolute. She encouraged the licentiousness of the court, and 
even the worst vices of her sons, that she might make them sub- 
servient to her designs. All her passions were subordinate to her 
calculations of policy, and every womanly virtue was suppressed 
by the desire of wielding a government which she usurped. 

Henry III. soon followed her to the grave, being, in turn, assas- 
sinated by a religious fanatic. His death (1589) secured the 
throne to the king of Navarre, who took the title of Henry IV. 

Henry IV., the first of the Bourbon line, was descended from 
Robert, the sixth son of St. Louis, who had married the daughter 
and heiress of John of Burgundy and Agnes of Bourbon. He 
was thirty-six years of age when he became king, and had passed 
through great experiences and many sorrows. Thus far he had 
contended for Protestant opinions, and was the acknowledged 
leader of the Protestant party in France. But a life of contention 
and bloodshed, and the new career opened to him as king of 
France, cooled his religious ardor, and he did not hesitate to 
accept the condition which the French nobles imposed, before they 
would take the oaths of allegiance. This was, that he should abjure 
Protestantism. " My kingdom," said he, " is well worth a mass." 
It will be ever laid to his reproach, by the Protestants, that he 
renounced his religion for worldly elevation. Nor is it easy to 
exculpate him on the highest principles of moral integrity. But 
there were many palliations for his conduct, which it is not now 
easy to appreciate. It is well known that the illustrious Sully, his 
prime minister, and, through life, a zealous Protestant, approved 
of his course. It was certainly clear that, without becoming a 
8 



86 EDICT OF NANTES. [CHAP. VII. 

Catholic, he never could peaceably enjoy his crown, and France 
would be rent, for another generation, by those civil wars which 
none lamented more than Henry himself. Besides, four fifths of 
the population were Catholics, and the Protestants could not rea- 
sonably expect to gain the ascendency. All they could expect 
was religious toleration, and this Henry was willing to grant. It 
should also be considered that the king, though he professed the 
reform doctrines, was never what may be called a religious man, 
being devoted to pleasure, and to schemes of ambition. It is true 
he understood and consulted the interests of his kingdom, and 
strove to make his subjects happy. Herein consists his excel- 
lence. As a magnanimous, liberal-minded, and enterprising man, 
he surpassed all the French kings. But it is ridiculous to call him 
a religious man, or even strongly fixed in his religious opinions. 
" Do you," said the king to a great Protestant divine, " believe 
that a man may be saved by the Catholic religion ? " " Undoubt- 
edly," replied the clergyman, "if his life and heart be holy." 
" Then," said the king, " prudence dictates that I embrace the 
Catholic religion, and not yours ; for, in that case, according to 
both Catholics and Protestants, I may be saved ; but, if I embrace 
your religion, I shall not be saved, according to the Catholics." 

But the king's conversion to Catholicism did not immediately 
result in the tranquillity of the distracted country. The Catholics 
would not believe in his sincerity, and many battles had to be 
fought before he was in peaceable enjoyment of his throne. But 
there is nothing so hateful as civil war, especially to the inhabit- 
ants of great cities ; and Paris, at last, and the chief places in 
the kingdom, acknowledged his sway. The king of Spain, the 
great Catholic, prelates, and .the pope, finally perceived how hope- 
less was the struggle against a man of great military experience, 
with a devoted army and an enthusiastic capital on his side. 

The peace of Verviens, in 1598, left the king without foreign 
or domestic enemies. From that period to his death, his life was 
devoted to the welfare of his country. 

His first act was the celebrated Edict of Nantes, by which the 
Huguenots had quiet and undisturbed residence, the free exercise 
of their religion, and public worship, except in the court, the 
army, and within five leagues of Paris. They were eligible to all 



CHAP. VII.] IMPROVEMENTS DURING THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. 87 

offices, civil and military; and all public prosecutions, on account 
of religion, were dropped. This edict also promulgated a general 
amnesty for political offences, and restored property and titles, as 
before the war; but the Protestants were prohibited from printing 
controversial books, and were compelled to pay tithes to the 
established clergy. 

Henry IV., considering the obstacles with which he had to con- 
tend, was the greatest general of the age ; but it is his efforts in 
civilization which entitle him to his epithet of Great. 

The first thing which demanded his attention, as a civil ruler, 
was the settlement of the finances — ever the leading cause of 
troubles with the French government. These were intrusted to 
the care of Rosny, afterward Duke of Sully, the most able and 
upright of all French financiers — a man of remarkable probity 
and elevation of sentiment. He ever continued to be the minister 
and the confidant of the king, and maintained his position without 
subserviency or flattery, almost the only man on the records of 
history who could tell, with impunity, wholesome truths to an abso- 
lute monarch. So wise were his financial arrangements, that a 
debt of three hundred million of livres was paid off in eight years. 
In five years, the taxes were reduced one half, the crown lands 
redeemed, the arsenals stored, the fortifications rebuilt, churches 
erected, canals dug, and improvements made in every part of the 
kingdom. On the death of the king, he had in his treasury nearly 
fifty millions of livres. Under the direction of this able minister, 
the laws were enforced, robbery and vagrancy were nearly 
stopped, and agriculture received a great impulse. But economy 
was the order of the day. The king himself set an illustrious 
example, and even dressed in gray cloth, with a doublet of taffeta, 
without embroidery, dispensed with all superfluity at his table, 
and dismissed all useless servants. 

The management and economy of the king enabled him to 
make great improvements, besides settling the deranged finances 
of the kingdom. He built innumerable churches, bridges, con- 
vents, hospitals, fortresses, and ships. Some of the finest palaces 
which adorn Paris were erected by him. He was also the patron 
of learning, the benefits of which he appreciated. He himself 
was well acquainted with the writings of the ancients. He was 



88 PEACE SCHEME OF HENRY IV. [CHAP. VII. 

particularly fond of the society of the learned, with whom he 
conversed with freedom and affability. He increased the libraries, 
opened public schools, and invited distinguished foreigners to 
Paris, and rewarded them with stipends. Lipsius, Scaliger, and 
De Thou, were the ornaments of his court. 

And his tender regard to the happiness and welfare of his sub- 
jects was as marked as his generous appreciation of literature and 
science. It was his ambition to be the father of his people ; and 
his memorable saying, " Yes, I will so manage matters that the 
poorest peasant in my kingdom may eat meat each day in the 
week, and, moreover, be enabled to put a fowl in the pot on a 
Sunday," has alone embalmed his memory in the affections of 
the French nation, who, of all their monarchs, are most partial 
to Henry IV. 

But this excellent king was also a philanthropist, and cherished 
the most enlightened views as to those subjects on which rests the 
happiness of nations. Though a warrior, the preservation of a 
lasting peace was the great idea of his life. He was even vision- 
ary in his projects to do good ; for he imagined it was possible to 
convince monarchs that they ought to prefer purity, peace, and 
benevolence, to ambition and war. Hence, he proposed to estab- 
lish a Congress of Nations, chosen from the various states of 
Europe, to whom all international difficulties should be referred, 
with power to settle them — a very desirable object, the most so 
conceivable ; for war is the greatest of all national calamities and 
crimes. The scheme of the enlightened Hemy, however, did not 
attract much attention ; and, even had it been encouraged, would 
have been set aside in the next generation. What would such 
men as Frederic the Great, or Marlborough, or Louis XIV., or Na- 
poleon have cared for such an object ? But Henry, in his scheme, 
also had in view the regulation of such forces as the European 
monarchs should sustain, and this arose from his desire to preserve 
the " Balance of Power " — the great object of European poli- 
ticians in these latter times. 

But Henry was not permitted, by Providence, to prosecute his 
benevolent designs. He was assassinated by a man whom he had 
never injured — by the most unscrupulous of all misguided men — 
a religious bigot. The Jesuit Ravaillac, in a mood, as it is to be 



CHAP. VII.] DEATH OF HENKY IV. 89 

hoped, bordering on madness, perpetrated the foul deed. But 
Henry only suffered the fate of nearly all the distinguished actors 
in those civil and religious contentions which desolated France for 
forty years. He died in 1610, at the age of fifty-seven, having 
reigned twenty-one years, nine of which were spent in uninter- 
rupted warfare. 

By his death the kingdom was thrown into deep and undissem- 
bled mourning. Many fell speechless in the streets when the intel- 
ligence of his assassination was known ; others died from excess 
of grief. All felt that they had lost more than a father, and 
nothing was anticipated but storms and commotions. 

He left no children by his wife, Margaret de Valois, who proved 
inconstant, and from whom he was separated. By his second 
wife, Mary de Medicis, he had three children, the oldest of whom 
was a child when he ascended the throne, by the title of Louis XIII. 
His daughter, Henrietta, married Charles I. of England. 

Though great advances were made in France during this reign, 
it was still far from that state of civilization which it attained a 
century afterwards. It contained about fifteen million of inhabit- 
ants, and Paris about one hundred and fifty thousand. The nobles 
were numerous and powerful, and engrossed the wealth of the 
nation. The people were not exactly slaves, but were reduced to 
great dependence, were uneducated, degraded, and enjoyed but 
few political or social privileges. They were oppressed by the 
government, by the nobles, and by the clergy. 

The highest official dignitary was the constable, the second 
the keeper of the seals, the third the chamberlain, then the six 
or eight marshals, then the secretary of state, then gentlemen 
of the household, and military commanders. The king was 
nearly absolute. The parliament was a judicial tribunal, which 
did not enact laws, but which registered the edicts of the king. 

Commerce and manufactures were extremely limited, and far 
from flourishing ; and the arts were in an infant state. Archi- 
tecture, the only art in which half-civilized nations have excelled, 
was the most advanced, and was displayed in the churches and 
royal palaces. Paris was crowded with uncomfortable houses, and 
the narrow streets were favorable to tumult as well as pestilence. 
Tapestry was the most common and the most expensive of the 
: 8* 



90 FRANCE AT THE DEATH OF HENRY IV. [cHAP. VII. 

arts, and the hangings, in a single room, often reached a sum 
which would be e5qual, in these times, to one hundred thousand 
dollars. The floors of the palaces were spread with Turkey car- 
pets. Chairs were used only in kings' palaces, and carriages were 
but just introduced, and were clumsy and awkward. Mules were 
chiefly used in travelling, the horses being reserved for war. 
Dress, especially of females, was gorgeous and extravagant ; false 
hair, masks, trailed petticoats, and cork heels ten inches high, 
were some of the peculiarities. The French then, as now, were 
fond of the pleasures of the table, and the hour for dinner was 
eleven o'clock. Morals were extremely low, and gaming was a 
universal passion, in which Henry IV. himself extravagantly 
indulged. The advice of Catharine de Medicis to her son 
Charles IX. showed her knowledge of the French character, even 
as it exists now : " Twice a week give public assemblies, for the 
specific secret of the French government is, to keep the people 
always cheerful ; for they are so restless you must occupy them, 
during peace, either with business or amusement, or else they will 
involve you in trouble." 

Such was France, at the death of Henry IV., 1610, one of the 
largest and most powerful of the European kingdoms, though far 
from the greatness it was destined afterwards to attain. 

A more powerful monarchy, at this period, was Spain. As this 
kingdom was then in the zenith of its power and glory, we will 
take a brief survey of it during the reign of Philip II., the suc- 
cessor of Charles V., a person to whom we have often referred. 
With his reign are closely connected the struggles of the Hol- 
landers to secure their civil and religious independence. The Low 
Countries were provinces of Spain, and therefore to be considered 
in connection with Spanish history. 



References. — For a knowledge of France during the reign of Henry IV., 
see James's History of Henry IV. ; James's Life of Conde ; History of the 
Huguenots. Rankin's and Crowe's Histories of France are the best in 
English, but far inferior to Sismondi's, Millot's, and Lacretelle's. Sully's 
Memoirs throw considerable light on this period, and Dumas's Margaret 
de Valois may be read with profit. 



CHAP. VIII.] BIGOTRY OF PHILIP II. 91 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PHILIP II. AND THE AUSTRIAN PRINCES OF SPAIN. 

Spain cannot be said to have been a powerful state until the 
reign of Ferdinand and Isabella ; when the crowns of Castile and 
Arragon were united, and when the discoveries of Columbus added 
a new world to their extensive territories. Nor, during the reign 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, was the power of the crown as abso- 
lute as during the sway of the Austrian princes. The nobles 
were animated by a bold and free spirit, and the clergy dared to 
resist the encroachments of royalty, and even the usurpations of 
Rome. Charles V. succeeded in suppressing the power of the 
nobles, and all insurrections of the people, and laid the foundation 
for the power of his gloomy son, Philip II. With Philip commenced 
the grandeur of the Spanish monarchy. By him, also, were sown 
the seeds of its subsequent decay. Under him, the inquisition 
was disgraced by ten thousand enormities, Holland was overran 
by the Duke of Alva, and America conquered by Cortes and 
Pizarro. It was he who built the gorgeous palaces of Spain, and 
who, with his Invincible Armada, meditated the conquest of Eng- 
land. The wealth of the Indies flowed into the royal treasury, and 
also enriched all orders and classes. Silver and gold became as 
plenty at Madrid as in old times at Jerusalem under the reign of 
Solomon. But Philip was a different prince from Solomon. His 
talents and attainments were respectable, but he had a jealous and 
selfish disposition, and exerted all the energies of his mind, and 
all the resources of his kingdom, to crush the Protestant religion, 
and the liberties of Europe. 

Among the first acts of his reign was the effort to extinguish 
Protestantism in the Netherlands, an assemblage of seigniories, 
under various titles, subject to his authority. The opinions of 
Luther and Calvin made great progress in this country, and Philip, 
in order to repress them, created new bishops, and established the 
Inquisition. The people protested, and these protests were con- 
sidered as rebellious. 



92 REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS. [CHAP. VIII. 

At the head of /he nobility was William, the Prince of Orange, 
on whom Philip had conferred the government of Holland, Zea- 
land, Friesland, and Utrecht, provinces of the Netherlands. He 
was a haughty but resolute and courageous character, and had 
adopted the opinions of Calvin, for which he lost the confidence 
of Philip. In the prospect of destruction, he embraced the reso- 
lution of delivering his country from the yoke of a merciless and 
bigoted master. Having reduced the most important garrisons of 
Holland and Zealand, he was proclaimed stadtholder, and openly 
threw off his allegiance to Spain. Hostilities, of course, com- 
menced. Alva, the general of Philip, took the old city of Haer- 
lem, and put fifteen hundred to the sword, among whom were all 
the magistrates, and all the Protestant clergy. 

Don John, Archduke of Austria, and the brother of Philip, suc- 
ceeded the Duke of Alva, during whose administration the seven 
United Provinces formed themselves into a confederation, and chose 
the Prince of Orange to be the general of their armies, admiral 
of their fleets, and chief magistrate, by the title of stadtholder. 
But William was soon after assassinated by a wretch who had been 
bribed by the exasperated Philip, and Maurice, his son, received 
his title, dignities, and power. His military talents, as the antago- 
nist of the Duke of Parma, lieutenant to Philip, in the Netherlands, 
secured him a high place in the estimation of warriors. To pro- 
tect this prince and the infant republic of Holland, Queen Eliza- 
beth sent four thousand men under the Earl of Leicester, her 
favorite ; and, with this assistance, the Hollanders maintained their 
ground against the most powerful monarch in Europe, as has been 
already mentioned in the chapter on Elizabeth. 

After the loss of the Netherlands, the next great event of his 
reign was the acquisition of Portugal, to which he laid claim on 
the death of Don Henry, in 1581. There were several other 
claimants, but Philip, with an army of twenty thousand, was 
stronger than any of the others. He gained a decisive victory 
over Don Antonio, uncle to the last monarch, and was crowned at 
Lisbon without opposition. 

The revolt of the Moriscoes occupies a prominent place in the 
annals of this reign. They were Christianized Moors, but, at 
heart, Mohammedans. A decree had been published that their 



CHAP. VIII.] REVOLT OF THE MOEISCOES. 93 

children should frequent the Christian church, that the Arabic should 
no longer be used in writing, that both men and women should 
wear the Spanish costume, that they no longer should receive Mo- 
hammedan names, or marry without permission. The Moriscoes 
contended that no particular dress involved religious opinions, that 
the women used the veil according to their notions of modesty, 
that the use of their own language was no sin, and that baths were 
used, not from religious motives, but for the sake of cleanliness. 
These expostulations were, however, without effect. Nothing 
could move the bigoted king. So revolt followed cruelty and 
oppression. Great excesses were committed by both parties, 
and most horrible barbarities were exhibited. The atrocious 
nature of civil war is ever the same, and presents nearly the same 
undeviating picture of misery and crime. But in this war there 
was something fiendish. A clergyman was roasted over a brazier, 
and the women, wearied with his protracted death, despatched him 
with their needles and knives. The rebels ridiculed the sacrifice 
of the mass by slaughtering a pig on the high altar of a church. 
These insults were retaliated with that cruelty which Spanish 
bigotry and malice know so well how to inflict. Thousands of 
defenceless women and children were murdered in violation of the 
most solemn treaties. The whole Moorish population was finally 
exterminated, and Granada, with its beautiful mountains and 
fertile valleys, was made a desert. No less than six hundred 
thousand were driven to Africa — an act of great impolicy, since 
the Moriscoes were the most ingenious and industrious part of the 
population ; and their exile contributed to undermine that national 
prosperity in which, at that day, every Spaniard gloried. But 
destruction ever succeeds pride ; infatuation and blindness are the 
attendants of despotism. 

The destruction of the Spanish Armada, and the losses which 
the Spaniards suffered from Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Haw- 
kins, have already been mentioned. But the pride of Philip was 
mortified, rather than that his power was diminished. His am- 
bition received a check, and he found it impossible to conquer 
England. His finances, too, became deranged ; still he remained 
the absolute master of the richest kingdom in the world. 

The decline of the Spanish monarchy dates from his death, 



94 CAUSES OF DECLINE OF THE SPANISH MONARCHY. [CHAP. VIII. 

which took place in his magnificent palace of the Escurial, at 
Madrid, in 1598. 4 Under his son Philip III., degeneracy became 
very marked, and future ruin could be predicted. 

The principal cause of the decline of prosperity was the great 
increase of the clergy, and the extent of their wealth. In the 
Spanish dominions, which included Spain, Naples, Milan, Parma, 
Sicily, Sardinia, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Indies, there 
were fifty-four archbishops, six hundred and eighty-four bishops, 
seven thousand hospitals, one hundred thousand abbeys and nun- 
neries, six hundred thousand monks, and three hundred and ten 
thousand secular priests — a priest to every ten families. Almost 
every village had a monastery. The diocese of Seville had four- 
teen thousand priests, nearly the present number of all the clergy 
of the establishment in England. The cathedral of Seville gave 
support and occupation to one hundred priests. 

And this numerous clergy usurped the power" and dignities of 
the state. They also encouraged that frightful inquisition, the 
very name of which conjures up the most horrid images of death 
and torture. This institution, committed to the care of Dominican 
monks, was instituted to put down heresy ; that is, eveiy thing in 
poetry, philosophy, or religion, which was distasteful to the despots 
of the human mind. The inquisitors had power to apprehend 
people even suspected of heresy, and, on the testimony of two 
witnesses, could condemn them to torture, imprisonment, and 
death. Resistance was vain ; complaint was ruin. Arrests took 
place suddenly and secretly. Nor had the prisoner a knowledge 
of his accusers, or of the crimes of which he was accused. The 
most delicate maidens, as well as men of hoary hairs and known 
integrity, were subjected to every outrage that human nature could 
bear, or satanic ingenuity inflict. Should the jailer take compas- 
sion, and bestow a few crumbs of bread or drops of water, he 
would be punished as the greatest of traitors. Even nobles were 
not exempted from the supervision of this court, which was estab- 
lished in every village and town in Portugal and Spain, and which, 
in the single city of Toledo, condemned, in one year, seventeen 
thousand people. This institution was tolerated by the king, since 
he knew veiy well that there ever exists an intimate union be- 
tween absolutism in religion and absolutism in government. 



CHAP. VIII.] THE INCREASE OF GOLD AND SILVER. 95 

Besides the spiritual despotism which the clergy of Spain exer- 
cised vover a deluded people, but a people naturally of fine elements 
of character, the sudden increase of gold and silver led to luxury, 
idleness, and degeneracy. Money being abundant, in consequence 
of the gold and silver mines of America, the people neglected the 
cultivation of those things which money could procure. Then 
followed a great rise in the prices of all kinds of provision and 
clothing. Houses, lands, and manufactures also soon rose in 
value. Hence money was delusive, since, with ten times the 
increase of specie, there was a corresponding decrease in those 
necessaries of life which gold and silver would purchase. Sil- 
ver and gold are only the medium of trade, not the basis of 
wealth. The real prosperity of a country depends upon the 
amount of productive industry. If diamonds were as numerous 
as crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals. The 
sudden influx of the precious metals into Spain doubtless gave a 
temporary wealth to the kingdom ; but when habits of industry 
were lost, and the culture of the soil was neglected, the gold and 
silver of the Spaniards were exchanged for the productive industry 
of other nations. The Dutch and the English, whose manufac- 
tures and commerce were in a healthy state, became enriched at 
their expense. With the loss of substantial wealth, that is, in- 
dustry and economy, the Spaniards lost elevation of sentiment, 
became cold and proud, followed frivolous pleasures and amuse- 
ments, and acquired habits which were ruinous. Plays, panto- 
mimes, and bull-fights now amused the lazy and pleasure-seeking 
nation, while the profligacy of the court had no parallel in Europe, 
with the exception of that of France. The countiy became 
exhausted by war. The finances were deranged, and province 
after province rebelled. Every where were military reverses, 
and a decrease of population. Taxes, in the mean while, in- 
creased, and a burdened people lamented in vain their misfortune 
and decline. The reign of Philip IV. was the most disastrous in 
the annals of the country. The Catalan insurrection, the loss of 
Jamaica, the Low Countries, and Portugal, were the results of 
his misrule and imbecility. So rapidly did Spain degenerate, that, 
upon the close of the Austrian dynasty, with all the natural advan- 
tages of the countiy, the best harbors and sea-coast in Europe, the 



96 DECLINE OF THE SPANISH MONARCHY. [CHAP. VIII. 

richest soil, and the finest climate, and with the possession of the 
Indies also, the people were the poorest, the most ignorant, and 
the most helpless in Europe. The death of Charles II., a miser- 
able, afflicted, superstitious, priest-ridden monarch, left Spain 
without a king, and the vacant throne became the prize of any 
monarch in Europe who could raise and send across the Pyre- 
nees the largest army. It fell into the power of Louis XIV., and 
the Bourbon princes have ever since in vain attempted the 
restoration of the broken monarchy to its former glory. But, alas, 
Spain has, since the spoliation of the Mexicans and Peruvians, only 
a melancholy history — a history of crime, bigotry, anarchy, and 
poverty. The Spaniards committed awful crimes in their lust 
for gold and silver. " They had their request," but God, in his 
retributive justice, " sent leanness into their souls." 



For the history of Spain during the Austrian princes, see a history in 
Lardner's Encyclopedia ; Watson's Life of Philip II. ; James's Foreign 
Statesmen ; Schiller's Revolt of the Netherlands ; Russell's Modern 
Europe ; Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and Peru. 



CHAP. IX.] THE ROMAN POWER IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 97 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE JESUITS, AND THE PAPAL POWER IN THE SEVEN 
TEENTH CENTURY. 

During the period we have just been considering, the most 
marked peculiarity was, the struggle between Protestantism and 
Romanism. It is true that objects of personal ambition also 
occupied the minds of princes, and many great events occurred, 
which were not connected with the struggles for religious liberty 
and light. But the great feature of the age was the insurrection 
of human intelligence. There was a spirit of innovation, which 
nothing could suppress, and this was directed, in the main, to mat- 
ters of religion. The conflict was not between church and state, 
but between two great factions in each. " No man asked whether 
another belonged to the same countiy as himself, but whether he 
belonged to the same sect." Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, Knox, 
Cranmer, and Bacon were the great pioneers in this march of 
innovation. They wished to explode the ideas of the middle 
ages, in philosophy and in religion. They made war upon the 
Roman Catholic Church, as the great supporter and defender of 
old ideas. They renounced her authority. She summoned her 
friends and vassals, rallied all her forces, and, with desperate 
energy, resolved to put down the spirit of reform. The struggles 
of the Protestants in England, Germany, France, and the Nether- 
lands, alike manifested the same spirit, were produced by the 
same causes, and brought forth the same results. The insurrection 
was not suppressed. 

The hostile movements of Rome, for a while, were carried on 
by armies, massacres, assassinations, and inquisitions. The duke 
of Alva's cruelties in the Netherlands, St. Bartholomew's massa- 
cre in France, inquisitorial tortures in Spain, and Smithfield burn- 
ings in England, illustrate this assertion. But more subtle and 
artful agents were required, especially since violence had failed. 
Men of simple lives, of undoubted piety, of earnest zeal, and sin- 
9 



98 RISE OF THE JESUITS. [CHAP. IX. 

gular disinterestedness to their cause, arose, and did what the sword 
and the stake could not do, — revived Catholicism, and caused a 
reaction to Protestantism itself. These men were Jesuits, the most 
faithful, intrepid, and successful soldiers that ever enlisted under 
the banners of Rome. The rise and fortunes of this order of 
monks form one of the most important and interesting chapters in 
the history of the human race. Their victories, and the spirit which 
achieved them, are well worth our notice. In considering them, 
it must be -borne in mind, that the Jesuits have exhibited traits so 
dissimilar and contradictory, that it is difficult to form a just judg- 
ment. While they were achieving their victories, they appeared 
in a totally different light from what distinguished them when they 
reposed on their laurels. In short, the earlier and the latter 
Jesuits were entirely different in their moral and social aspects, 
although they had the same external organization. The principles 
of their system were always the same. The men who defended 
them, at first, were marked by great virtues, but afterwards were 
deformed by equally as great vices. It was in the early days of 
Jesuitism that the events we have recorded took place. Hence our 
notice, at present, will be confined to the Jesuits when they were 
worthy of respect, and, in some things, even of admiration. Their 
courage, fidelity, zeal, learning, and intrepidity for half a century, 
have not been exaggerated. 

The founder of the order was Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish gen- 
tleman of noble birth, who first appeared as a soldier at the siege 
of Pampeluna, where he was wounded, about the time that Luther 
was writing his theses, and disputing about indulgences. He 
amused himself, on his sick bed, by reading the lives of the saints. 
His enthusiastic mind was affected, and he resolved to pass from 
worldly to spiritual knighthood. He became a saint, after the 
notions of the age ; that is, he fasted, wore sackcloth, lived on roots 
and herbs, practised austerities, retired to lonely places, and spent 
his time in contemplation and prayer. The people were attracted 
by his sanctity, and followed him in crowds. His heart burned to 
convert heretics ; and, to prepare himself for his mission, he went 
to the universities, and devoted himself to study. There he made 
some distinguished converts, all of whom afterwards became 
famous. In his narrow cell, at Paris, he induced Francis Xavier, 



CHAP. IX.] RAPID SPREAD OF THE JESUIT ORDER. 99 

Faber, Laynez, Bobadilla, and Rodriguez to embrace his views, 
and to form themselves into an association, for the conversion of 
the world. On the summit of Mount Montmartre, these six young 
men, on one star-lit night, took the usual monastic vows oi poverty, 
chastity, and ooedience, and solemnly devoted themselves to their 
new mission. 

They then went to Rome, to induce the pope to constitute them 
a new missionary order. But they were ridiculed as fanatics. 
Moreover, for several centuries, there had been great opposition in 
Rome against the institution of new monastic orders. It was 
thought that there were orders enough ; that the old should be 
reformed, not new ones created. Even St. Dominic and St. 
Francis had great difficulty in getting their orders instituted. But 
Loyola and his companions made extraordinary offers. They pro- 
fessed their willingness to go wherever the pope should send them, 
among Turks, heathens, or heretics, instantly, without condition, or 
reward. 

How could the pope refuse to license them ? His empire was 
in danger ; Luther was in the midst of his victories ; the power 
of ideas and truth was shaking to its centre the pontifical throne ; 
all the old orders had become degenerate and inefficient, and the 
pope did not know where to look for efficient support. The vener- 
able Benedictines were revelling in the wealth of their splendid 
abbeys, while the Dominicans and the Franciscans had become 
itinerant vagabonds, peddling relics and indulgences, and forgetful 
of those stern duties and virtues which originally characterized 
them. All the monks were inexhaustible subjects of sarcasm and 
mockery. They even made scholasticism ridiculous, and the papal 
dogmas contemptible. Erasmus laughed at them, and Luther 
mocked them. They were sensual, lazy, ignorant, and corrupt. 
The pope did not want such soldiers. But the followers of Loyola 
were full of ardor, talent, and zeal ; willing to do any thing for a 
sinking cause ; able to do any thing, so far as human will can 
avail. And they did not disappoint the pope. Great additions 
were made. They increased with marvellous rapidity. The 
zealous, devout, and energetic, throughout all ranks in the Catholic 
church, joined them. They spread into all lands. They became 
the confessors of kings, the teachers of youth, the most popular 



100 RAPID SPREAD OF THE JESUITS. [CHAP. IX. 

preachers, the most successful missionaries. In sixteen years after 
the scene of Montfciartre, Loyola had established his society in the 
affections and confidence of Catholic Europe, against the voice of 
universities, the fears of monarchs, and the jealousy of the other 
monastic orders. In sixteen years, from the condition of a ridi- 
culed fanatic, whose voice, however, would have been disregarded 
a century earlier or later, he became one of the most powerful 
dignitaries of the church, influencing the councils of the Vatican, 
moving the minds of kings, controlling the souls of a numerous 
fraternity, and making his power felt, even in the courts of Japan 
and China. Before he died, his spiritual sons had planted their 
missionaiy stations amid Peruvian mines, amid the marts of the 
African slave trade, in the islands of the Indian Ocean, and in the 
cities of Japan and China. Nay, his followers had secured the 
most important chairs in the universities of Europe, and had be- 
come confessors to the most powerful monarchs, teachers in the 
best schools of Christendom, and preachers in its principal pulpits. 
They had become an organization, instinct with life, endued with 
energy and will, and forming a body which could outwatch Argus 
with his hundred eyes, and outwork Briareus with his hundred 
arms. It had forty thousand eyes open upon every cabinet and 
private family in Europe, and forty thousand arms extended over 
the necks of both sovereigns and people. It had become a mighty 
power in the world, inseparably connected with the education and 
the religion of the age, the prime mover of all political affairs, the 
grand prop of absolute monarchies, the last hope of the papal 
hierarchy. 

The sudden growth and enormous resources of the " Society of 
Jesus " impress us with feelings of amazement and awe. We 
almost attribute them to the agency of mysterious powers, and 
forget the operations of natural causes. The history of society 
shows that no body of men ever obtained a wide-spread ascen- 
dency, except by the exercise of remarkable qualities of mind and 
heart. And this is the reason why the Jesuits prospered. When 
Catholic Europe saw young men, born to fortune and honors, vol- 
untarily surrendering their rank and goods, devoting themselves 
to religious duties, spending their days in hospitals and schools, 
wandering, as missionaries, into the most unknown and dangerous 



en 



CHAP. IX.] EXTRAORDINARY VIRTUES OF THE OLDER JESUITS. 101 

parts of the world, exciting the young to study, making great 
attainments in all departments of literature and science, and 
shedding a light, wherever they went, by their genius and disin- 
terestedness, it was natural that they would be received as preach- 
ers, teachers, and confessors. That they were characterized, dur- 
ing the first fifty years, by such excellences, has never been 
denied. The Jesuit missionaiy called forth the praises of Baxter, 
and the panegyric of Leibnitz. He went forth, without fear, to 

counter the most dreaded dangers. Martyrdom was nothing to 
him, for he knew that the altar, which might stream with his blood, 
would, in after times, be a cherished monument of his fame, and 
an impressive emblem of the power of his religion. Francis 
Xavier, one of the first converts of Loyola, a Spaniard of rank, 
traversed a tract of more than twice the circumference of the 
globe, preaching, disputing, and baptizing, until seventy thousand 
converts attested the fruits of his mission. In perils, fastings, and 
fatigues, was the life of this remarkable man passed, to convert 
the heathen world ; and his labors have never been equalled, as a 
missionaiy, except by the apostle Paul. But China and Japan 
were not the only scenes of the enterprises of Jesuit missionaries. 
As early as 1634, they penetrated into Canada, and, shortly after, 
to the sources of the Mississippi and the prairies of Illinois. " My 
companion," said the fearless Marquette, " is an envoy of France, 
to discover new countries ; but I am an ambassador of God, to 
enlighten them with the gospel." But of all the missions of the 
Jesuits, those in Paraguay were the most successful. They there 
gathered together, in reductions, or villages, three hundred thou- 
sand Indians, and these were bound together by a common interest, 
were controlled by a paternal authority, taught useful arts, and 
trained to enjoy the blessings of civilization. On the distant banks 
of the La Plata, while the Spanish colonists were hunting the 
Mexicans and Peruvians with bloodhounds, or the English slave 
traders were consigning to eternal bondage the unhappy Africans, 
the Jesuits were realizing the ideal paradise of More — a Utopia, 
where no murders or robberies were committed, and where the 
blessed flowers of peace and harmony bloomed in a garden of 
almost primeval loveliness. 

In that age, the Jesuit excelled in any work to which he devoted 
9* 



102 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE JESUITS. [CHAP. IX. 

his attention. He was not only an intrepid missionary, but a mosi 
successful teacherl Into the work of education he entered heart 
and soul. He taught gratuitously, without any crabbed harshness, 
and with a view to gain the heart. He entered into the feelings 
of his pupils, and taught them to subdue their tempers, and avoid 
quarrels and oaths. He excited them to enthusiasm, perceived their 
merits, and rewarded the successful with presents and favors. 
Hence the schools of the Jesuits were the best in Europe, and 
were highly praised even by the Protestants. The Jesuits were 
even more popular as preachers than they were as teachers ; and 
they were equally prized as confessors. They were so successful 
and so respected, that they soon obtained an ascendency in Europe. 
Veneration secured wealth, and their establishments gradually 
became magnificently endowed. But all their influence was 
directed to one single end — to the building up of the power of 
the popes, whose obedient servants they were. Can we wonder 
that Catholicism should revive ? 

Again, their constitution was wonderful, and admirably adapted 
to the ends they had in view. Their vows were indeed substan- 
tially the same as those of other monks, but there was among them 
a more practical spirit of obedience. All the members were con- 
trolled by a single will — all were passive instruments in the hands 
of the general of the order. He appointed presidents of colleges 
and of religious houses ; admitted, dismissed, dispensed, and pun- 
ished at his pleasure. His power was irresponsible, and for life. 
From his will there was no appeal. There were among them 
many gradations in rank, but each gradation was a gradation in 
slavery. The Jesuit was bound to obey even., his own servant, if 
required by a superior. Obedience was the soul of the institution, 
absolute, unconditional, and unreserved — even the submission of 
the will, to the entire abnegation of self. The Jesuit gloried in 
being made a puppet, a piece of machinery, like a soldier, if 
the loss of his intellectual independence would advance the inter- 
ests of his order. The esprit de corps was perfectly wonderful ; 
and this spirit was one secret of the disinterestedness of the body. 
" Ad majorem Dei gloriam" was the motto emblazoned on their 
standards, and written on their hearts ; but this glory of God was 
synonymous with the ascendency of their association. 



CHAP. IX.] DEGENERACY OF THE JESUITS. 103 

The unconditional obedience to a single will, which is the 
genius of Jesuitism, while it signally advanced the interests of the 
body, and of the pope, to whom they were devoted, still led to the 
most detestable and resistless spiritual despotism ever exercised by 
man. The Jesuit, especially when obscure and humble, was a 
tool, rather than an intriguer. He was bound hand and foot by 
the orders of his superiors, and they alone were responsible for his 
actions. 

We can easily see how the extraordinary virtues and attain- 
ments of the early Jesuits, and the wonderful mechanism of their 
system, would promote the growth of the order and the interests of 
Rome, before the suspicions of good people would be aroused. 
It was a long time after their piety had passed to fraud, their 
simplicity to cunning, their poverty to wealth, their humility to 
pride, and their indifference to the world to cabals, intrigues, and 
crimes, before the change was felt. And, moreover, it was more 
than a centuiy before the fruits of the system were fully reaped. 
With all the excellences of their schools and missions, dangerous 
notions and customs were taught in them, which gradually de- 
stroyed their efficacy. A bad system often works well for a while, 
but always carries the seeds of decay and ruin. It was so with 
the institution of Loyola, in spite of the enthusiasm and sincerity 
of the early members, and the masterly wisdom displayed by the 
founders. In after times, evils were perceived, which had, at 
first, escaped the eye. It was seen that the system of education, 
though specious, and, in many respects, excellent, was calculated 
to narrow the mind, while it filled it with knowledge. Young men, 
in their colleges, were taught blindly to follow a rigid mechanical 
code ; they were closely watched ; all books were taken from 
them of a liberal tendency ; mutilated editions of such as could 
not be denied only were allowed ; truths of great importance were 
concealed or glossed over ; exploded errors were revived, and 
studies recommended which had no reference to the discussion of 
abstract questions on government or religion. And the boys 
were made spies on each other, their spirits were broken, and 
their tastes perverted. The Jesuits sought to guard the avenues 
to thought, not to open them, were jealous of all independence of 
mind, and never sought to go beyond their age, or base any 
movement on ideal standards. 



104 EVILS IN THE JESUIT SYSTEM. [CHAP. IX. 

Again, as preachers, though popular and eloquent, they devoted 
their talents to convert men to the Roman church rather than to 
God. They were bigoted sectarians ; strove to make men 
Catholics rather than Christians. As missionaries, they were con- 
tent with a mere nominal conversion. They gave men the 
crucifix, but not the Bible, and even permitted their converts to 
retain many of their ancient superstitions and prejudices. And 
thus they usurped the authority of native rulers, and sought to 
impose on China and Japan their despotic yoke. They greatly 
enriched themselves in consequence of the credulity of the natives, 
whom they flattered, and wielded an unlawful power. And this 
is one reason why they were expelled, and why they made no 
permanent conquests among the millions they converted in Japan. 
They wished not only to subjugate the European, but the Asiatic 
mind. Europe did not present a field sufficiently extensive for 
their cupidity and ambition. 

Finally, as confessors, they were peculiarly indulgent to those 
who sought absolution, provided their submission was complete. 
Then it was seen what an easy thing it was to bear the yoke of 
Christ. The offender was told that sin consisted in wilfulness, 
and wilfulness in the perfect knowledge of the nature of sin, 
according to which doctrine blindness and passion were sufficient 
exculpations.! They invented the doctrine of mental reservation, 
on which Pascal was so severe. Perjury was allowable, if the 
perjured were inwardly determined not to swear. A man might 
fight a duel, if in danger of being stigmatized as a coward ; he 
might betray his friend, if he could thus benefit his party. 
The Jesuits invented a system of casuistry which confused all 
established ideas of moral obligation. They tolerated, and some 
of them justified, crimes, if the same could be made subservient to 
the apparent interests of the church. Their principle was to do 
evil that good might come. Above all, they conformed to the 
inclinations of the great, especially to those of absolute princes, on 
whom they imposed no painful penance, or austere devotion. 
Their sympathies always were with absolutism, in all its forms, 
and they were the chosen and trusted agents of the despots of 
mankind, until even the eyes of Europe were open to their vast 
ambition, which sought to erect an independent empire within the 



CHAP. IX.] THE POPES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 105 

limits of despotism itself. But the corruptions of the Jesuits, their 
system of casuistry, their lax morality, their disgraceful intrigues, 
their unprincipled rapacity, do not belong to the age we have now 
been considering. These fruits of a bad system had not then 
been matured ; and the infancy of the society was as beautiful as 
its latter days were disgraceful and fearful. In a future chapter, 
we shall glance at the decline and fall of this celebrated institution 
— the best adapted to its proposed ends of any system ever de- 
vised by the craft and wisdom of man. 

The great patrons of the Jesuits — the popes and their empire 
in the sixteenth century, after the death of Luther — demand 
some notice. The Catholic church, in this century, was remark- 
able for the reformation it attempted within its own body, and 
for the zeal, and ability, and virtue, which marked the character 
of many of the popes themselves. , Had it not been for this counter 
reformation, Protestantism would have obtained a great ascendency 
in Europe. But the Protestants were divided among themselves, 
while the Catholics were united, and animated with singular zeal. 
They put forth their utmost energies to reconquer what they had 
lost. They did not succeed in this, but they secured the ascend- 
ency, on the whole, of the Catholic cause in Europe. For this 
ascendency the popes are indebted to the Jesuits. 

At the close of the sixteenth century, the popes possessed a 
well-situated, rich, and beautiful province. All writers celebrated 
its fertility. Scarcely a foot of land remained uncultivated. Corn 
was exported, and the ports were filled with ships. The people 
were courageous, and had great talents for business. The middle 
classes were peaceful and contented, but the nobles, who held in 
their hands the municipal authority, were turbulent, rapacious, and 
indifferent to intellectual culture. The popes were generally 
virtuous characters, and munificent patrons of genius. Gregory 
XIII. kept a list of men in every country who were likely to acquit 
themselves as bishops, and exhibited the greatest caution in ap- 
pointing them. Sixtus V., whose father was an humble gardener, 
encouraged agriculture and manufactures, husbanded the resources 
of the state, and filled Rome with statues. He raised the obelisk 
in front of St. Peter's, and completed the dome of the Cathedral. 
Clement VIII. celebrated the mass himself, and scrupulously 



106 NEPOTISM OF THE POPES. [CHAP. IX. 

devoted himself to religious duties. He was careless of the 
pleasures which formerly characterized the popes, and admitted 
every day twelve poor persons to dine with him. Paul V. had 
equal talents and greater authority, but was bigoted and cold. 
Gregory XIV. had all the severity of an ancient monk. The only 
religious peculiarity of the popes, at the latter end of the sixteenth 
century, which we unhesitatingly condemn, was, their religious in- 
tolerance. But they saw that their empire would pass away, unless 
they made vigorous and desperate measures to retain it. During 
this period, the great victories of the Jesuits, the establishment of 
their colleges, and the splendid endowments of their churches took 
place. Gregory XV. built, at his own cost, the celebrated church 
of St. Ignatius, at Rome, and instituted the Propaganda, a mis- 
sionary institution, under the control of the Jesuits. 

The popes, whether good or bad, did not relinquish their nep- 
otism in this century, in consequence of which great families 
arose with every pope, and supplanted the old aristocracy. The 
Barberini family, in one pontificate, amassed one hundred and 
five millions of scudi — as great a fortune as that left by Mazarin. 
But they, enriched under Urban VII., had to flee from Rome 
under Innocent X. Jealousy and contention divided and distracted 
all the noble families, who vied with each other in titles and 
pomp, ceremony and pride. The ladies of the Savelli family 
never quitted their palace walls, except in closely veiled carriages. 
The Visconti decorated their walls with the portraits of the popes 
of their line. The Gaetana dwelt with pride on the memory of 
Boniface VIII. The Colonna and Orsini boasted that for cen- 
turies no peace had been concluded in Christendom, in which 
they had not been expressly included. But these old fami- 
lies had become gradually impoverished, and yielded, in wealth 
and power, though not in pride and dignity, to the Cesarini, Bor- 
gesi, Aldobrandini, Ludovisi, Giustiniani, Chigi, and the Barberini. 
All these families, from which popes had sprung, had splendid 
palaces, villas, pictures, libraries, and statues ; and they contrib- 
uted to make Rome the centre of attraction for the elegant and 
the literary throughout Europe. It was still the moral and social 
centre of Christendom. It was a place to which all strangers 
resorted, and from which all intrigues sprung. It was the scene 



CHAP. IX.] EOME IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 107 

of pleasure, gayety, and grandeur. And the splendid fabric, 
which was erected in the " ages of faith," in spite of all the ca- 
lamities and ravages of time, remained still beautiful and attrac- 
tive. Since the first secession, in the sixteenth century, Rome has 
lost none of her adherents, and those, who remained faithful, have 
become the more enthusiastic in their idolatry. 



.References. — Ranke's History of the Popes. Father Bouhour's Life 
of Ignatius Loyola. A Life of Xavier, by the same author. Stephens's 
Essay on Loyola. Charlevoix's History of Paraguay. Pascal's Provincial 
Letters. Macaulay"s Review of Ranke's History of the Popes. Bancroft's 
chapter, in the History of the United States, on the colonization of 
Canada. " Secreta Monita." Histoire des Jesuites. " Spiritual Exer- 
cises." Dr. Williams's Essay. History of Jesuit Missions. The works, 
on the Jesuits are very numerous ; but those which are most accessible 
are of a violent partisan character. Eugene Sue, in his "Wandering 
Jew," has given false, but strong, impressions. Infidel writers have gen- 
erally been the most bitter, with the exception of English and Scotch 
authors, in the seventeenth century. The gx-eat work of Ranke is the 
most impartial with which the author is acquainted. Ranke's histories; 
should never be neglected, of which admirable translations have beea 
made. 



108 POLITICAL TROUBLES AFTER THE DEATH OF LUTHER. [CHAP. X. 



CHAPTER X. 

THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 

The contests which arose from the discussion of religious ideas 
did not close with the sixteenth century. They were, on the other 
hand, continued with still greater acrimony. Protestantism had 
been suppressed in France, but not in Holland or Germany. In 
England, the struggle was to continue, not between the Catholics 
and Protestants, but between different parties among the Protes- 
tants themselves. In Germany, a long and devastating war of 
thirty years was to be carried on before even religious liberty 
could be guaranteed. 

This struggle is the most prominent event of the seventeenth 
century before the English Revolution, and was attended with the 
most important religious and political consequences. The event 
itself was one of the chief political consequences of the Reforma- 
tion. Indeed, all the events of this period either originated in, or 
became mixed up with, questions of religion. 

From the very first agitation of the reform doctrines, the house 
of Austria devoted against their adherents the whole of its im- 
mense political power. Charles V. resolved to suppress Protes- 
tantism, and would have perhaps succeeded, had it not been for 
the various wars which distracted his attention, and for the decided 
stand which the Protestant princes of Germany took respecting 
Luther and his doctrines. As early as 1530, was formed the 
league of Smalcalde, headed by the elector of Saxony, the most 
powerful of the German princes, next to the archduke of Austria. 
The princes who formed this league, resolved to secure to their 
subjects the free exercise of their religion, in spite of all opposi- 
tion from the Catholic powers. But hostilities did not commence 
until after, Luther had breathed his last. The Catholics gained a 
great victory at the battle of Miihlberg, when the Elector of Sax- 
ony was taken prisoner. With the treaty of Smalcalde, the free- 
dom of Germany seemed prostrate forever, and the power of 



CHAP. X.] DIET OF AUGSBURG. 109 

Austria reached its meridian. But the cause of liberty revived 
under Maurice of Saxony, once its formidable enemy. All the 
fruits of victoiy were lost again in the congress of Passau, and the 
diet of Augsburg, when an equitable peace seemed guaranteed to 
the Protestants. 

The diet of Augsburg, 1555, the year of the resignation of 
Charles V., divided Germany into two great political and religious 
parties, and recognized the independence of each. The Protes- 
tants were no longer looked upon as rebels, but as men who had a 
right to worship God as they pleased. Still, in reality, all that the 
Lutherans gained was toleration, not equality. The concessions 
of the Catholics were made to necessity, not to justice. Hence, 
the treaty of Augsburg proved only a truce, not a lasting peace. 
The boundaries of both parties were marked out by the sword, and 
by the sword only were they to be preserved. 

For a while, however, peace was preserved, and might have 
continued longer, had it not been for the dissensions of Protestants 
among themselves, caused by the followers of Calvin and Luther. 
The Lutherans would not include the Calvinists in their com* 
munion, and the Calvinists would not accede to the Lutheran 
church. During these dissensions, the Jesuits sowed tares, and the 
Protestants lost the chance of establishing their perfect equality 
with the Catholics. 

Notwithstanding all the bitterness and jealousy which existed 
between sects and parties, still the peace of Germany, in a political 
sense, was preserved during the reign of Ferdinand, the founder 
of the German branch of the house of Austria, and who suc- 
ceeded his brother Charles V. On his death, in 1564, his son Max- 
imilian II., was chosen emperor, and during his reign, and until 
his death, in 1576, Germany enjoyed tranquillity. His successor 
was his son Rodolph, a weak prince, and incapable of uniting the 
various territories which were hereditary in his family — Austria, 
Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Moravia, and Styria. There 
were troubles in each of these provinces, and one after another 
revolted, until Rodolph was left with but the empty title of empe- 
ror. But these provinces acknowledged the sway of his brother 
Matthias, who had delivered them from the Turks, and had granted 
the Protestants liberty of conscience. The emperor was weak 
10 



110 COMMENCEMENT OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. L CHAP - x - 

enough to confirm his brother in his usurpation. In 1612, he 
died, and Matthias mounted the imperial throne. 

It was during the reign of this prince, that the Thirty Years' WaT 
commenced. In proportion as the reformed religion gained 
ground in Hungary and Bohemia, — two provinces very difficult to 
rule, — the Protestant princes of the empire became desirous of 
securing and extending their privileges. Their demands were 
refused, and they entered into a new confederacy, called the 
Evangelical Union. This association was opposed by another, 
called the Catholic League. The former was supported by 
Holland, England, and Henry IV. of France. The humiliation 
of Austria was the great object of Henry in supporting the Prot- 
estant princes of Germany, and he assembled an army of forty 
thousand men, which he designed to head himself. But, just as 
his preparations were completed, he was assassinated, and his 
death and the dissensions in the Austrian family prevented the 
war breaking out with the fury which afterwards characterized it. 

The Emperor Matthias died in 1618, and was succeeded by 
his cousin Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, who was an inveterate 
enemy to the Protestant cause. His first care was to suppress 
the insurrection of the Protestants, which, just before his accession, 
had broken out in Bohemia, under the celebrated Count Mansfelt. 
The Bohemians renounced allegiance to Ferdinand II., and chose 
Frederic V., elector palatine, for their king. Frederic unwisely 
accepted the crown, which confirmed the quarrel between Ferdi- 
nand and the Bohemians. Frederic was seconded by all the 
Protestant princes, except the Elector of Saxony, by two thousand 
four hundred English volunteers, and by eight thousand troops 
from the United Provinces. But Ferdinand, assisted by the king 
of Spain and all the Catholic princes, was more than a match for 
Frederic, who wasted his time and strength in vain displays of 
sovereignty. Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, commanded the forces 
of the Catholics, who, with twenty-five thousand troops from the 
Low Countries, invaded Bohemia. The Bohemian forces did not 
amount to thirty thousand, but they intrenched themselves near 
Prague, where they were attacked (1620) and routed, with im- 
mense slaughter. The battle of Prague decided the fate of 
Bohemia, put Frederic in possession of all his dominions, and 



CHAP. X.] THE EMPEROR FREDERIC. Ill 

invested him with an authority equal to what any of his predeces- 
sors had enjoyed. All his wishes were gratified, and, had he 
been wise, he might have maintained his ascendency in Germany. 
But he was blinded by his success, and, from a rebellion in Bohe- 
mia, the war extended through Germany, and afterwards through- 
out Europe. 

The emperor had regained his dominions by the victorious arms 
of Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. To compensate him, without 
detriment to himself, he resolved to bestow upon him the domin- 
ions of the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who had injudiciously 
accepted the crown of Bohemia. Frederic must be totally ruined. 
He was put under the ban of the empire, and his territories were 
devastated by the Spanish general Spinola, with an army of 
twenty-five thousand men. 

Apparently there was no hope for Frederic, or the Protestant 
cause. The only Protestant princes capable of arresting the 
Austrian encroachments were the Electors of Saxony and Bran- 
denburg. But the former, John George, preferred the aggrandize- 
ment of his house to the emancipation of his country, and tamely 
witnessed the victories of the emperor, without raising an arm for 
the relief of the Protestants, of whom he was the acknowledged 
head. George William of Brandenburg was still more shamefully 
fettered by the fear of Austria, and of losing his dominions ; and 
he, too, cautiously avoided committing himself to either party. 

But while these two great princes ingloriously abandoned Fred- 
eric to his fate, a single soldier of fortune, whose only treasure 
was his sword, Ernest Count Mansfield, dared, in the Bohemian 
town of Pilsin, to defy the whole power of Austria. Undismayed 
by the reverses of the elector palatine, he succeeded in enlisting 
an army of twenty thousand men. With such an army, the cause 
of Frederic was not irretrievably lost. New prospects began to 
open, and his misfortunes raised up unexpected friends. James of 
England opened his treasures, and Christian of Denmark offered 
his powerful support. Mansfield was also joined by the Margrave 
of Baden. The courage of the count palatine revived, and he 
labored assiduously to arouse his Protestant brethren. Meanwhile, 
the generals of the emperor were on the alert, and the rising 
hopes of Frederic were dissipated by the victories of Tilly. The 



112 COUNT WALLENSTEIN. [CHAP. X. 

count palatine was again driven from his hereditary dominions, 
and sought refuge ki Holland. 

But, though the emperor was successful, his finances were 
exhausted, and he was disagreeably dependent on Bavaria. Un- 
der his circumstances, nothing was more welcome than the 
proposal of Wallenstein, an experienced officer, and the richest 
nobleman in Bohemia. 

He offered, at his own expense, and that of his friends, to raise, 
clothe, and maintain an army for the emperor, if he were allowed 
to augment it to fifty thousand men. His project was ridiculed 
as visionary ; but the offer was too valuable to be rejected. In a 
few months, he had collected an army of thirty thousand. His 
reputation, the prospect of promotion, and the hope of plunder, 
attracted adventurers from all parts of Germany. Knowing that 
so large a body could not be held together without great resources, 
and having none of his own, he marched his troops into the most 
fertile territories, which had not yet suffered from the war, where 
they subsisted by contributions and plunder, as obnoxious to their 
friends as they were to their enemies. Nothing shows the weak- 
ness of the imperial power, with all its apparent strength, and the 
barbarous notions and customs of the country, more than this grant 
to Wallenstein. And, with all his heroism and success, he cannot 
now be viewed in any other light than as a licensed robber. He 
was virtually at the head of a troop of banditti, who fought for the 
sake of plunder, and who would join any side which would present 
the greatest hopes of gain. The genius of Schiller, both in his 
dramas and histories, has immortalized the name of this unprinci- 
pled hero, and has excited a strange interest in his person, his 
family, and his fortunes. He is represented as " born to com- 
mand. His acute eye distinguished at a glance, from among the 
multitude, such as were competent, and he assigned to each his 
proper place. His praise, from being rarely bestowed, animated 
and brought into full operation every faculty ; while his steady, 
reserved, and earnest demeanor secured obedience and discipline. 
His very appearance excited awe and reverence ; his figure was 
proud, lofty, and warlike, while his bright, piercing eye expressed 
profundity of thought, combined with gravity and mystery. His 
favorite study was that of the stars, and his most intimate friend 



CHAP. X.] CHARACTER OF WALLENSTEIN. 113 

was an Italian astrologer. He had a fondness for pomp and 
extravagance. He maintained sixty pages ; his ante-chamber was 
guarded by fifty life-guards, and his table never consisted of less 
than one hundred covers. Six barons and as many knights were 
in constant attendance on his person. He never smiled, and the 
coldness of his temperament was proof against sensual seductions. 
Ever occupied with grand schemes, he despised those amuse- 
ments in which so many waste their lives. Terror was the talis- 
man with which he worked : extreme in his punishments as in his 
rewards, he knew how to keep alive the zeal of his followers, 
while no general of ancient or modern times could boast of being 
obeyed with equal alacrity. Submission to his will was more 
prized by him than bravery, and he kept up the obedience of his 
troops by capricious orders. He was a man of large stature, thin, 
of a sallow complexion, with short, red hair, and small, sparkling 
eyes. A gloomy and forbidding seriousness sat upon his brow, and 
his munificent presents alone retained the trembling crowd of his 
dependants." 

Such was this enterprising nobleman, to whom the emperor Fer- 
dinand committed so great authority. And the success of Wallen- 
stein apparently justified the course of the emperor. The greater 
his extortions, and the greater his rewards, the greater was the con- 
course to his standard. Such is human nature. It is said that, in 
seven years, Wallenstein exacted not less than sixty millions of 
dollars from one half of Germany — an incredible sum, when the 
expenditure of the government of England, at this time, was less than 
two million pounds a year. His armies flourished, while the states 
through which they passed were ruined. What cared he for the 
curses of the people, or the complaints of princes, so long as his 
army adored him ? It was his object to humble all the princes of 
the empire, and make himself so necessary to the emperor that he 
would gradually sink to become his tool. He already was created 
Duke of Friedland, and generalissimo of the imperial armies. 
Nor had his victorious career met with any severe check, but 
uninterrupted success seemed to promise the realization of his 
vast ambition. Germany lay bleeding at his feet, helpless and 
indignant. 

But the greatness and the insolence of Wallenstein raised up 
10* 



114 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. [CHAP. X. 

enemies against him in all parts of the empire. Fear and jeal- 
ousy increased the opposition, even in the ranks of the Catholics. 
His dismissal was demanded by the whole college of electors, 
and even by Spain. Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, felt himself 
eclipsed by the successful general, and was at the head of the 
cabals against him. 

The emperor felt, at this crisis, as Ganganelli did when com- 
pelled to disband the Jesuits, that he was parting with the man 
to whom he owed all his supremacy. Long was he undecided 
whether or not he would make the sacrifice. But all Germany 
was clamorous, and the disgrace of Wallenstein was ordained. 

Would the ambitious chieftain, at the head of one hundred 
thousand devoted soldiers, regard the commands of the emperor ? 
He made up his mind to obey, looking to the future for revenge, 
and feeling that he could afford to wait for it. Seni had read in 
the stars that glorious prospects still awaited him. Wallenstein 
retired to his estates in Bohemia, but maintained the pomp and 
splendor of a prince of the empire. 

Scarcely had he retired from the command of the army before 
his services were again demanded. One hero produces another. 
A Wellington is ever found to oppose a Napoleon. Providence 
raised up a friend to Germany, in its distress, in the person 
of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden. It was not for per- 
sonal aggrandizement that he lent his powerful arm to the 
Protestant princes, who, thus far, had vainly struggled against 
Maximilian, Tilly, and Wallenstein. Zeal for Protestantism, 
added to strong provocations, induced him to land in Germany 
with fifteen thousand men — a small body to oppose the victorious 
troops of the emperor, but they were brave and highly disciplined, 
and devoted to their royal master. He himself was indisputably 
the greatest general of the age, and had the full confidence of 
the Protestant princes, who were ready to rally the moment he 
obtained any signal advantage. Henceforth, Gustavus Adolphus 
was the hero of the war. He was more than a hero ; he was a 
Christian, regardful of the morals of his soldiers, and devoted to 
the interests of spiritual religion. He was frugal, yet generous ; 
serene in the greatest danger; and magnanimous beyond all 
precedent in the history of kings. On the 20th of May, 1630, 



CHAP. X.] LOSS OF MAGDEBURG. 115 

taking his daughter Christiana in his arms, then only four years of 
age, he presented her to the states as their future sovereign, and 
made his farewell address. " Not lightly, not wantonly," said he, 
" am I about to involve myself and you in this new and dangerous 
war. God is my witness that I do not fight to gratify my own 
ambition ; but the emperor has wronged me, has supported my 
enemies, persecuted my friends, trampled my religion in the dust, 
and even stretched forth his revengeful arm against my crown. 
The oppressed states of Germany call loudly for aid, which, by 
God's help, we will give them. 

" I am fully sensible of the dangers to which my life will be 
exposed. I have never yet shrunk from them, nor is it likely that 
I shall always escape them. Hitherto, Providence has protected 
me ; but I shall at last fall in defence of my country and my faith. 
I commend you to the protection of Heaven. Be just, conscien- 
tious, and upright, and we shall meet again in eternity. For the 
prosperity of all my subjects, I offer my warmest prayer to 
Heaven ; and bid you all a sincere — it may be an eternal — 
farewell." 

He had scarcely landed in Germany before his victorious career 
began. France concluded a treaty with him, and he advanced 
against Tilly, who now headed the imperial armies. 

The tardiness of the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg in 
rendering assistance caused the loss of Magdeburg, the most 
important fortress of the Protestants. It was taken by assault, 
even while Gustavus was advancing to its relief. No pen can 
paint, and no imagination can conceive, the horrors which were 
perpetrated by the imperial soldiers in the sack of that unfortunate 
place. Neither childhood nor helpless age — neither youth, beauty, 
sex, nor rank could disarm the fury of the conquerors. No situa- 
tion or retreat was sacred. In a single church fifty-three women 
were beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with throwing 
children into the flames. Pappenheim's Walloons stabbed infants 
at the breast. The city was reduced to ashes, and thirty thousand 
of the inhabitants were slain. 

But the loss of this important city was soon compensated by the 
battle of Leipsic, 1630, which the King of Sweden gained over 
the imperial forces, and in which the Elector of Saxony at last 



116 WALLENSTEIN REINSTATED IN POWER. [CHAP. X. 

rendered valuable aid. The rout of Tilly, hitherto victorious, was 
complete, and he himself escaped only by chance. Saxony was 
freed from the enemy, while Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and 
Hungary, were stripped of their defenders. Ferdinand was no 
longer secure in his capital ; the freedom of Germany was secured. 
Gustavus was eveiy where hailed as a deliverer, and admiration 
for his genius was only equalled by the admiration of his virtues. 
He rapidly regained all that the Protestants had lost, and the fruits 
of twelve years of war were snatched away from the emperor. 
Tilly was soon after killed, and all things indicated the complete 
triumph of the Protestants. 

It was now the turn of Ferdinand to tremble. The only person 
who could save him was dismissed and disgraced. Tilly was 
dead. Munich and Prague were in the hands of the Protestants, 
while the king of Sweden traversed Germany as a conqueror, law- 
giver, and judge. No fortress was inaccessible; no river checked 
his victorious career. The Swedish standards were planted in Ba- 
varia, Bohemia, the Palatinate, Saxony, and along the banks of 
the Rhine. Meanwhile the Turks were preparing to attack 
Hungary, and a dangerous insurrection threatened his own capital. 
None came to his assistance in the hour of peril. On all sides, 
he was surrounded by hostile armies, while his own forces were 
dispirited and treacherous. 

From such a hopeless state he was rescued by the man whom 
he had injured, but not until he had himself to beg his assistance. 
Wallenstein was in retirement, and secretly rejoiced in the victories 
of the Swedish king, knowing full well that the emperor would 
soon be compelled to summon him again to command his armies. 
Now he could dictate his terms. Now he could humiliate his 
sovereign, and at the same time obtain all the power his ambition 
craved. He declined entering his service unless he had the un- 
limited command of all the armies of Austria and Spain. No 
commission in the army was to be granted by the emperor, without 
his own approval. He demanded the ordinary pay, and an impe- 
rial hereditary estate. In short, he demanded sovereign authority ; 
and with such humiliating terms the emperor, in his necessities, 
was obliged to comply. 

No sooner did he raise his standard, than it was resorted to by 



CHAP. X.] DEATH OF GTJSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 117 

the unprincipled, the rapacious, and the needy from all parts of 
the empire. But Wallenstein now resolved to pursue, exclusively, 
his own selfish interests, and directed all his aims to independent 
sovereignty. When his forces were united with those of Maxi- 
milian, he found himself at. the head of sixty thousand men. 
Then really commenced the severity of the contest, for Wallenstein 
was now stronger than Gustavus. Nevertheless, the heroic Swede 
offered to give his rival battle at Nuremburg, which was declined. 
He then attacked his camp, but was repulsed with loss. At last, 
the two generals met on the plains of Lutzen, in Saxony, 1632. 
During the whole course of the war, two such generals had not 
been pitted against each other, nor had so much been staked on 
the chance of a battle. Victoiy declared for the troops of Gus- 
tavus, but the heroic leader himself was killed, in the fulness of 
his glory. It was his fortune to die with an untarnished fame. 
" By an untimely death," says Schiller, " his protecting genius 
rescued him from the inevitable fate of man — that of forgetting 
moderation in the intoxication of success, and justice in the pleni- 
tude of power. It may be doubted whether, had he lived longer, 
he would still have deserved the tears which Germany shed over 
his grave, or maintained his title to the admiration with which pos- 
terity regards him, — as the first and only just conqueror that the 
world has produced. But it was no longer the benefactor of Ger- 
many who fell at Lutzen; the beneficent part of his career Gus- 
tavus Adolphus had already terminated ; and now the greatest 
service which he could render to the liberties of Germany was — 
to die. The all-engrossing power of an individual was at an end ; 
the equivocal assistance of an over-powerful protector gave place 
to a more noble self-exertion on the part of the estates ; and those 
who formerly were the mere instruments of his aggrandizement, 
now began to work for themselves. The ambition of the Swedish 
monarch aspired, unquestionably, to establish a power within Ger- 
many inconsistent with the liberties of the estates. His aim was 
the imperial crown ; and this dignity, supported by his power, 
would be liable to more abuse than had ever been feared from the 
house of Austria. His sudden disappearance secured the liberties 
of Germany, and saved his own reputation, while it probably 
spared him the mortification of seeing his own allies in arms 



118 ASSASSINATION OF WALLENSTEIN. [CHAP. X. 

against him, and all the fruits of his victories torn from him by a 
disadvantageous peace." 

After the battle of Lutzen we almost lose sight of Wallenstein ; 
and no victories were commensurate with his reputation and abili- 
ties. He continued inactive in Bohemia, while all Europe was 
awaiting the exploits which should efface the remembrance of his 
defeat. He exhausted the imperial provinces by enormous contri- 
butions, and his whole conduct seems singular and treacherous. 
His enemies at the imperial court now renewed their intrigues, 
and his conduct was reviewed with the most malicious criticism. 
But he possessed too great power to be openly assailed by the em- 
peror, and measures were concerted to remove him by treacheiy. 
Wallenstein obtained notice of the designs against him, and now, 
too late, resolved on an open revolt. But he was betrayed, and 
his own generals, on whom he counted, deserted him, so soon as 
the emperor dared to deprive him of his command. But he was 
only removed by assassination, and just at the moment when he 
deemed himself secure against the whole power of the emperor. 
No man, however great, can stand before an authority which is 
universally deemed legitimate, however reduced and weakened 
that authority may be. In times of anarchy and revolution, there 
is confusion in men's minds respecting the persons in whom legiti- 
mate authority should be lodged, and this is the only reason why 
rebellion is ever successful. 

The death of Wallenstein, in 1634, did not terminate the war. 
It raged eleven years longer, with various success, and involved the 
other European powers. France was then governed by Cardinal 
Richelieu, who, notwithstanding his Catholicism, lent assistance to 
the Protestants, with a view of reducing the power of Austria. 
Indeed, the war had destroyed the sentiments which produced it, 
and political motives became stronger than religious. Oxenstein 
and Richelieu became the master spirits of the contest, and, in the 
recesses of their cabinets, regulated the campaigns of their gen- 
erals. Battles were lost and won on both sides, and innumerable 
intrigues were plotted by interested statesmen. After all par- 
ties had exhausted their resources, and Germany was deluged 
with the blood of Spaniards, Hollanders, Frenchmen, Swedes, 
besides that of her own sons, the peace of Westphalia was con- 



CHAP. X.] TREATY OF WESTPHALIA. 119 

eluded, (1648,) — the most important treaty in the history of Eu- 
rope. All the princes and states of the empire were reestablished 
in the lands, rights, and prerogatives which they enjoyed before 
the troubles in Bohemia, in 1619. The religious liberties of the 
Lutherans and Calvinists were guaranteed, and it was stipulated 
that the Imperial Chamber should consist of twenty-four Protestant 
members and twenty-six Catholic, and that the emperor should 
receive six Protestants into the Aulic Council, the highest judicial 
tribunal in the empire. This peace is the foundation of the whole 
system of modern European politics, of all modern treaties, of 
that which is called the freedom of Germany, and of a sort of 
balance of power among all the countries of Western Europe. 
Dearly was it purchased, by the perfect exhaustion of national 
energies, and the demoralizing sentiments which one of the longest 
and bloodiest wars in human history inevitably introduced. 



References. — Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' "War. Russell's 
Modern Europe. Coleridge's Translation of Wallenstein. Kohlrausch's 
History of Germany. See also a history of Germany in Dr. Lardner's 
Cyclopedia. History of Sweden. Plank on the Political Consequences 
of the Reformation. The History of Schiller, however, is a classic, and is 
exceedingly interesting and beautiful. 



120 REGENCY OF MARY DE MEDICIS. [CHAP. XI. 



CHAPTER XI. 

ADMINISTRATIONS OF CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 

While Germany was rent with civil commotions, and the power 
of the emperors was limited by the stand taken against it by the 
Protestant princes, France was ruled with an iron hand, and a foun- 
dation was laid for the despotism of Louis XIV. The energetic 
genius of Cardinal Richelieu, during the whole period of the thirty 
years' war, affected the councils of all the different courts of Eu- 
rope. He was indisputably the greatest statesman of his age and 
nation. To him France is chiefly indebted for the ascendency 
she enjoyed hi the seventeenth century. Had Henry IV. lived to 
the age of Louis XIV., France would probably have been perma- 
nently greater, although the power of the king might not have 
been so absolute. 

When Henry IV. died, he left his kingdom to his son Louis 
XIII., a child nine years of age. The first thing to be done was 
the appointment of a regent. The Parliament of Paris, in whom 
this right seems to have been vested, nominated the queen mother, 
Mary de Medicis, and the young king, in a bed of justice, — 
the greatest of the royal prerogatives, — confirmed his mother 
in the regency. Her regency was any thing but favorable to the 
interests of the kingdom. The policy of the late king was disre- 
garded, and a new course of measures was adopted. Sully, 
through whose counsels the reign of Henry IV. had been so benefi- 
cent, was dismissed. The queen regent had no sympathy with 
his views. Neither the corrupt court nor the powerful aristocracy 
cared any thing for the interests of the people, for the improve- 
ment of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, for the regu- 
lation of the finances, or for increasing the productive industry of 
the country, on which its material prosperity ever depends. The 
greedy courtiers obtained from a lavish queen the treasures which 
the wise care of Henry had amassed, and which he thoughtlessly 
bestowed in order to secure their fidelity. The foreign policy also 



CHAP. XI.] RISE OF CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 121 

was changed, and a strong alliance was made with the pope, with 
Spain, and with the Jesuits. 

On the retirement of the able and incorruptible Sully, favorites 
of no talent or worth arose to power. Concini, an Italian, con- 
trolled the queen regent, and through him all her favors flowed. 
He was succeeded by Luynes, a mere falconer, who made him- 
self agreeable to the young king, and usurped the power of Con- 
cini, when the king attained his majority. He became constable 
of France, the highest officer in the realm, and surpassed all the 
old nobility in arrogance and cupidity. His mismanagement and 
selfishness led to an insurrection of some of the great nobles, 
among whom were Conde and D'Epernon. 

While the kingdom was thus convulsed with civil war, and in 
every way mismanaged, Richelieu, Bishop of Lucon, appeared 
upon the stage. He was a man of high birth, was made doctor 
of the Sorbonne at the age of twenty-two, and, before he was 
twenty-five, a bishop. During the ascendency of Mancini, he 
attracted the attention of the queen, and was selected as secretary 
of state. Soon after the death of Luynes, he obtained a cardi- 
nal's hat, and a seat in the council. The moment he spoke, his 
genius predominated, and the monarch, with all his pride, bowed 
to the ascendency of intellect, and yielded, with a good grace, to 
a man whom it was impolitic to resist. 

From that moment, in 1622, the reins of empire were in the 
hands of a master, and the king himself, were it not for the splen- 
dor- of his court, would have disappeared from the eye, both of 
statesmen and historians. The reign of anarchy, for a quarter 
of a century, at least, was over, and the way was prepared for the 
aggrandizement of the French monarchy. When Richelieu came 
into power, universal disorder prevailed. The finances were 
deranged, the Huguenots were troublesome, and the nobles were 
rebellious. Such was the internal state of France, — weakened, 
distracted, and anarchical. She had lost her position among the 
great powers, and Austria threatened to overturn the political rela- 
tions of all the states of Europe. Austria, in the early part of 
the seventeenth century, was, unquestionably, the leading power 
in Christendom, and her ascendency boded no good to the liberties 
which men were beginning to assert. 
11 



122 SUPPRESSION OF THE HUGUENOTS. [CHAP. XI. 

Three great objects animated the genius of Richelieu, and in 
the attainment of these he was successful. These were, the sup- 
pression of the Huguenots, as a powerful party, the humiliation 
of the great barons, and the reduction of the power of Austria. 
For these objects he perseveringly contended for twenty years ; 
and his struggles and intrigues to secure these ends constitute the 
history of France during the reign of Louis XIII. And they 
affected not only France, but the whole continent. His policy 
was to preserve peace with England and Spain, — the hereditary 
enemies of France, — with Sweden, and with the Protestants of 
Germany, even while he suppressed their religion within his own 
realm. It was the true policy of England to prevent the ruin of 
the Huguenots in France, as before she had aided the Protestants 
in Holland. But, unfortunately, England was then ruled by James 
and Charles, and they were controlled by profligate ministers, who 
were the tools of the crafty cardinal. A feeble assistance was 
rendered by James, but it availed nothing. 

Inorder to annihilate the political power of the Huguenots, — for 
Richelieu cared more for this than for their religious opinions, — 
it was necessary that he should possess himself of the city of La Ro- 
che He, on the Bay of Biscay, a strong fortress, which had resisted, 
during the reign of Charles IX., the whole power of the Catholics, 
and which continued to be the stronghold of the Huguenots. Here 
they could always retire and be safe, in times of danger. It was 
strongly fortified by sea, as well as by land ; and only a vigorous 
blockade could exclude provisions and military stores from the 
people. But England was mistress of the ocean, and supplies 
from her would always relieve the besieged. 

After ineffectual but vigorous attempts to take the city by land, 
Richelieu determined to shut up its harbor, first by stakes, and 
then by a boom. Both of these measures failed. But the mili- 
tary genius of the cardinal was equal to his talents as a statesman. 
He remembered what Alexander did at the siege of Tyre. So, 
with a volume of Quintus Curtius in his hand, he projected and 
finished a mole, half a mile in length, across a gulf, into which 
the tide flowed. In some places, it was eight hundred and forty 
feet below the surface of the water, and sixty feet in breadth. At 
first, the besieged laughed at an attempt so gigantic and difficult. 



CHAP. XI.] THE DEPRESSION OF THE GREAT NOBLES. 123 

But the work steadily progressed, and the city was finally cut ofF 
from communication with the sea. The besieged, wasted by 
famine, surrendered ; the fortifications were destroyed, the town 
lost its independence, and the power of the Huguenots was broken 
forever. But no vengeance was taken on the heroic citizens, and 
they were even permitted to enjoy their religion. Fifteen thou- 
sand, however, perished at this memorable siege. 

The next object of Richelieu was the humiliation of Austria. 
But the detail of his military operations would be complicated and 
tedious, since no grand and decisive battles were fought by his 
generals, and no able commanders appeared. Turenne and Conde 
belonged to the next age. The military operations consisted in 
frontier skirmishes, idle sieges, and fitful expeditions, in which, 
however, the cardinal had the advantage, and by which he gained, 
since he could better afford to pay for them. War is always ruin- 
ously expensive, and that party generally is successful which can 
the longer furnish resources. It is a proof that religious bigotry 
did not mainly influence him, since he supported the Protestant 
party. All motives of a religious kind were absorbed in his pre- 
vailing passion to aggrandize the French monarchy. Had it not 
been for the intrigues and forces of Richelieu, the peace of West- 
phalia might not have been secured, and Austria might again have- 
overturned the " Balance of Power." 

The third great aim of the minister, and the one which he most 
systematically pursued to the close of his life, was the depression 
of the nobles, whose power was dangerously exercised. They had 
almost feudal privileges, were enormously wealthy, numerous, 
corrupt, and dissolute. His efforts to suppress their power raised 
up numerous conspiracies. 

Among the earliest was one supported by the queen mother and 
Gaston, Duke of Orleans, brother to the king, and presumptive heir 
to the throne. Connected with this conspiracy were the Dukes of 
Bourbon and Vendome, the Prince de Chalais, and several others of 
the highest rank. It was intended to assassinate the cardinal and 
seize the reins of government. But he got timely notice of the 
plot, informed the king, and guarded himself. The conspira- 
tors were too formidable to be punished in a body ; so he dissem- 
bled, and resolved to cut them off in detail. He moreover threat- 



124 SUPPRESSION OF GREAT NOBLES. [CHAP. XI. 

ened the king with resignation, and frightened him by predicting a 
civil war. In consequence, the king gave orders to arrest his 
brothers, the Dukes of Bourbon and Vendome, while the Prince of 
Chalais was executed. The Duke of Orleans, on the confession 
of Chalais, fled from the kingdom. The queen mother was 
arrested, Bassompierre was imprisoned in the Bastile, and the Duke 
of Guise sent on a pilgrimage to Rome. The powerful D'Eper- 
non sued for pardon. 

Still Richelieu was not satisfied. He resolved to humble the 
parliament, because it had opposed an ordinance of the king de- 
claring the partisans of the Duke of Orleans guilty of treason. It 
had rightly argued that such a condemnation could not be issued 
without a trial. " But," said the artful minister to the weak-minded 
king, " to refuse to verify a declaration which you yourself an- 
nounced to the members of parliament, is to doubt your authority." 
An extraordinary council was convened, and the parliament, which 
was simply a court of judges, was summoned to the royal presence. 
They went in solemn procession, carrying with them the record 
which showed their refusal to register the edict. The king received 
them with stately pomp. They were required to kneel in his 
presence, and their decree was taken from the record and torn in 
pieces before their eyes, and the leading members were suspended 
and banished. 

The Court of Aids, by whom the money edicts were registered, 
also showed opposition. The members left the court when the 
next edict was to be registered. But they were suspended, until 
they humbly came to terms. 

" All the malcontents, the queen, the prince, the nobles, the par- 
liament, and the Court of Aids hoped for the support of the people, 
and all were disappointed." And this is the reason why they failed 
and Richelieu triumphed. There never have been, among the 
French, disinterestedness and union in the cause of liberty, which 
never can be gained without perseverance and self-sacrifice. 

The next usurpation of Richelieu was the erection of a new 
tribunal for trying state criminals, in which no record of its pro- 
ceedings should be preserved, and the members of which should 
be selected by himself. This court was worse than that of the 
Star Chamber. 



CHAP. XI.] ■ POWER OF EICHELIEU. 125 

Richelieu showed a still more culpable disregard of the forms 
of justice in the trial of Marshal Marrillac, charged with crimes in 
the conduct of the army. He was brought before a commission, 
and not before his peers, condemned, and executed. 

In view of this judicial murder, the nobles, generally, were 
filled with indignation and alarm. They now saw that the minister 
aimed at the complete humiliation of their order, and therefore 
made another effort to resist the cardinal. At the head of this 
conspiracy was the Duke of Montmorency, admiral and constable 
of France, one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom. He 
was governor of Provence, and deeply resented the insult offered 
to his rank in the condemnation of Marrillac. He moreover felt 
indignant that the king's brother should be driven into exile by the 
hostility of a priest. He therefore joined his forces with those of 
the Duke of Orleans, was defeated, tried, and executed for rebel- 
lion, against the entreaty and intercession of the most powerful 
families. 

The cardinal minister was now triumphant over all his enemies. 
He had destroyed the political power of the Huguenots, extended 
the boundary of France, and decimated the nobles. He now 
turned his attention to the internal administration of the kingdom. 
He created a national navy, protected commerce and industry, 
rewarded genius, and formed the French Academy. He attained 
a greater pitch of greatness than any subject ever before or since 
enjoyed in his country, greater even than was possessed by Wol- 
sey. Wolsey, powerful as he was, lived, like a Turkish vizier, in 
constant fear of his capricious master. But Richelieu controlled 
the king himself. Louis XIII. feared him, and felt that he could 
not reign without him. He did not love the cardinal, and was 
often tempted to dismiss him, but could never summon sufficient 
resolution. Richelieu was more powerful than the queen mother, 
the brothers of the king, the royal mistresses, or even all united, 
since he obtained an ascendency over all, doomed the queen 
mother to languish in exile at Cologne, and compelled the duke 
of Orleans to succumb to him. He was chief of three of the 
principal monastic orders, and possessed enormous wealth. He 
erected a palace as grand as Hampton Court, and appeared in 
public with great pomp and ceremony. 
11* 



126 CHARACTER OF RICHELIEU. [CHAP. XI. 

But an end came to his greatness. In 1642, a mortal malady 
wasted him away ; he summoned to his death bed his royal master ; 
recommended Mazarin as his successor ; and died like a man who 
knew no remorse, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and the 
eighteenth of his reign as minister. He was eloquent, but his 
words served only to disguise his sentiments; he was direct and 
frank in his speech, and yet a perfect master of the art of dissimu- 
lation ; he could not be imposed upon, and yet was passionately 
fond of flattery, which he liked in such large doses that it seemed 
hyperbolical ; he was not learned, yet appreciated learning in 
others, and magnificently rewarded it ; he was fond of pleasure, 
and easily fascinated by women, and yet was cold, politic, impla- 
cable, and cruel. But he was a great statesman, and aimed to 
suppress anarchy and preserve law. In view of his labors to 
preserve order, we may almost excuse his severity. " Placed," 
says Montresor, as quoted by Miss Pardoe, " at an equal distance 
between Louis IX., whose aim was to abolish feudality, and the 
national convention, whose attempt was to crush aristocracy, he 
appeared, like them, to have received a mission of blood from 
heaven. The high nobility, repulsed under Louis XI. and Fran- 
cis I., almost entirely succumbed under Richelieu, preparing, by its 
overthrow, the calm, unitarian, and despotic reign of Louis XIV., 
who looked around him in vain for a great noble, and found only 
courtiers. The great rebellion, which, for nearly two centuries, 
agitated France, almost entirely disappeared under the ministry 
of the cardinal. The Guises, who had touched with their hand 
the sceptre of Henry III., the Condes, who had placed their foot 
on the steps of the throne of Hemy IV., and Gaston, who had 
tried upon his brow the crown of Louis XIII., — all returned, at 
the voice of the minister, if not into nothingness, at least into 
impotency. All who struggled against the iron will, enclosed in 
that feeble body, were broken like glass. And all the struggle 
which Richelieu sustained, he did not sustain for his own sake, but 
for that of France. All the enemies, against whom he contended, 
were not his enemies merely, but those of the kingdom. If he 
clung tenaciously by the side of a king, whom he compelled to live 
a melancholy, unhappy, and isolated life, whom he deprived suc- 
cessively of his friends, of his mistresses, and of his family, as a 



CHAP. XI.] EFFECTS OF RICHELIEU'S POLICY. 127 

tree is stripped of its leaves, of its branches, and of its bark, it 
was because friends, mistresses, and family exhausted the sap of 
the expiring royalty, which had need of all its egotism to prevent it 
from perishing. For it was not intestinal struggles merely, — there 
was also foreign war, which had connected itself fatally with them. 
All those great nobles whom he decimated, all those princes of 
the blood whom he exiled, were inviting foreigners to France ; 
and these foreigners, answering eagerly to the summons, were 
entering the country on three different sides, — the English by 
Guienne, the Spaniards by Roussillon, and the Austrians by Artois. 

"He repulsed the English by driving them to the Isle of Re, and 
by besieging La Rochelle ; the Spaniards, by creating beside them 
the new kingdom of Portugal ; and the imperialists, by detaching 
Bavaria from its alliance, by suspending their treaty with Den- 
mark, and by sowing dissensions in the Catholic league. His 
measures were cruel, but not uncalled for. Chalais fell, but he 
had conspired with Lorraine and Spain ; Montmorency fell, but he 
had entered France with arms in his hand ; Cinq-Mars fell, but 
he had invited foreigners into the kingdom. Born a simple priest, 
he became not only a great statesman, but a great general. And 
when La Rochelle fell before those measures to which Schomberg 
and Bassompierre were compelled to bow, he said to the king, 
' Sire, I am no prophet, but I assure your majesty that if you will 
condescend to act as I advise you, you will pacificate Italy in the 
month of May, subjugate Languedoc in the month of July, and be 
on your return in the month of August.' And each of these 
prophecies he accomplished in its time and place, and in such 
wise that, from that moment, Louis XIII. vowed to follow forever 
the counsels of a man by which he had so well profited. Finally, 
he died, as Montesquieu asserts, after having made the monarch 
enact the secondary character in the monarchy, but the first in 
Europe ; after having abased the king, but after having made his 
reign illustrious ; and after having mowed down rebellion so close 
to the soil, that the descendants of those who had composed the 
league could only form the Fronde, as, after the reign of Napo- 
leon, the successors of the La Vendee of '93 could only execute 
the Vendee of '32." 

Louis XIII. did not long survive this greatest of ministers. 



128 eichelietj's folicy. [chap. xi. 

Naturally weak, he was still weaker by disease. He was reduced 
to skin and bone. 4 In this state, he called a council, nominated 
his queen, Anne of Austria, regent, during the minority of his son 
Louis XIV., then four years of age, and shortly after died, 
in 1643. 

Mazarin, the new minister, followed out the policy of Richelieu. 
The war with Austria and Spain was continued, which was closed, 
on the Spanish side, by the victory of Rocroi, in 1643, obtained 
by the Prince of Conde, and in which battle twenty-three thousand 
Frenchmen completely routed twenty-six thousand Spaniards, 
killing eight thousand, and taking six thousand prisoners — • one of 
the bloodiest battles ever fought. The great Conde here obtained 
those laurels which subsequent disgrace could never take away. 
The war on the side of Germany was closed, in 1648, by the 
peace of Westphalia. Turenne first appeared in the latter cam- 
paign of this long war, but gained no signal victory. 

. Cardinal Mazarin, a subtle and intriguing Italian, while he 
pursued the policy of Richelieu, had not his genius or success. 
He, was soon involved in domestic troubles. The aristocracy 
rebelled. Had they been united, they would have succeeded ; but 
their rivalries, jealousies, and squabbles divided their strength and 
distracted their councils. Their cause was lost, and Mazarin 
triumphed, more from their divisions than from his own strength. 

He first had to oppose a clique of young nobles, full of arro- 
gance and self-conceit, but scions of the greatest families. They 
hoped to recover the ancient ascendency of their houses. The 
chief of these were the Dukes of Beaufort, Epernon, and Guise. 
They made use, as their tool, of Madame Chevreuse, the confi- 
dential friend of the queen regent. And she demanded of the 
minister that posts of honor and power should be given to her 
friends, which would secure that independence which Richelieu 
had spent his life in restraining. Mazarin tried to amuse her, but, 
she being inexorable, he was obliged to break with her, and a 
conspiracy was the result, which, however, was easily suppressed. 

But a more formidable enemy appeared in the person of De 
Retz, coadjutor archbishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, a 
man of boundless intrigue, unconquerable ambition, and restless 
discontent. To detail his plots and intrigues, would be to describe 



CHAP. XI.] CARDINAL DE EETZ. 129 

a labyrinth. He succeeded, however, in keeping the country 
in perpetual turmoil, now inflaming the minds of the people, 
then exciting insurrections among the nobles, and then, again, 
encouraging the parliaments in resistance. He never appeared 
as an actor, but every movement was directed by his genius. 
He did not escape suspicion, but committed no overt acts by which 
he could be punished. He and the celebrated Duchess de Longue- 
ville, a woman who had as great a talent for intrigue as himself, 
were the life and soul of the Fronde — - a civil war which ended 
only in the reestablishment of the monarchy on a firmer founda- 
tion. As the Fronde had been commenced by a troop of urchins, 
who, at the same time, amused themselves with slings, the wits 
of the court called the insurgents frondeurs, or slingers, insinu- 
ating that their force was trifling, and their aim mischief. 

Nevertheless, the Frondeurs kept France in a state of anarchy 
for six years, and they were headed by some of the most powerful 
nobles, and even supported by the Parliament of Paris. The 
people, too, were on the side of the rebels, since they were ground 
down by taxation, and hoped to gain a relief from their troubles. 
But the rebels took the side of the oppressed only for their private 
advantage, and the parliament itself lacked the perseverance and 
intrepidity necessary to secure its liberty. The civil war of the 
Fronde, though headed by discontented nobles, and animated by 
the intrigues of a turbulent ecclesiastic, was really the contest 
between the parliament and the arbitrary power of the govern- 
ment. And the insurrection would have been fearful and suc- 
cessful, had the people been firm, or the nobles faithful to the 
cause they defended. But the English Revolution, then in 
progress, and in which a king had been executed, shocked the 
lovers of constitutional liberty in France, and reacted then, even 
as the French Revolution afterwards reacted on the English mind. 
Moreover, the excesses which the people perpetrated at Paris, 
alai'med the parliament and the nobles who were allied with it, while 
it urged on the ministers to desperate courses. The prince of 
Conde, whose victories had given him an immortality, dallied with 
both parties, as his interests served. Allied with the court, he 
could overpower the insurgents ; but allied with the insurgents, he 
could control the court. Sometimes he sided with the minister,. 



130 PRINCE OF COND12. [CHAP. XI. 

and sometimes with the insurgents, but in neither case unless he 
exercised a power arftl enjoyed a remuneration dangerous in any 
government. Both parties were jealous of him, both feared him, 
both hated him,' both insulted him, and both courted him. At one 
time, he headed the royal troops, to attack Paris, which was gen- 
erally in the hands of the people and of parliament ; and then, at 
another, he fought like a -tiger to defend himself in Paris against 
the royal troops. He had no sympathy with either the parliament 
or the people, while he fought for them ; and he venerated the 
throne, while he rebelled against it. His name was Louis de 
Bourbon, and he was a prince of the blood. He contended 
against the crown only to wrest from it the ancient power of the 
great nobles; and to gain this object, he thought to make the 
parliament and the Parisian mob his tools. The parliament, 
sincerely devoted to liberty, thought to make the nobles its tools, 
and only leagued with them to secure their services. The crafty 
Mazarin quietly beheld these dissensions, and was sure of ultimate 
success, even though at one time banished to Cologne. And, like 
a reed, .he was ever ready to bend to difficulties he could not con- 
trol. But he stooped to conquer. He at last got the Prince of 
Conde, his brother the Prince of Conti, and the Duke of Longue- 
ville, in his power. When the Duke of Orleans heard of it, he 
said, " He has taken a good haul in the net ; he has taken a lion, 
a fox, and a monkey." But the princes escaped from the net, 
and, leagued with Turenne, Bouillon, La Rochefoucault, and other 
great nobles, reached Paris, and were received with acclamations 
of joy by the misguided people. Then, again, they obtained the 
ascendant. But the ascendency was no sooner gained than the 
victors quarrelled with themselves, and with the parliament, for 
whose cause they professed to contend. It was in then- power, 
when united, to have deprived the queen regent of her authority, 
and to have established constitutional liberty in France. But they 
would not unite. There was no spirit of disinterestedness, nor of 
patriotism, nor public virtue, without which liberty is impossible, 
even though there were forces enough to batter down Mount Atlas. 
Conde, the victor, suffered himself to be again bribed by the 
court. He would not persevere in his alliance with either nobles 
or the parliament. He did not unite with the nobles because he 



CHAP. XI.] POWER OF MAZARIN. 131 

felt that he was a prince. He did not continue with the parlia- 
ment, because he had no sympathy with freedom. The cause 
of the nobles was lost for want of mutual confidence ; that of 
the parliament for lack of the spirit of perseverance. The par- 
liament, at length, grew weary of war and of popular commo- 
tions, and submitted to the court. All parties hated and distrusted 
each other, more than they did the iron despotism of Mazarin. 
The power of insurgent nobles declined. De Retz, the arch 
intriguer, was driven from Paris. The Duchess de Longueville 
sought refuge in the vale of Port Royal ; and, in the Jansenist 
doctrines, sought that happiness which earthly grandeur could not 
secure. Conde quitted Paris to join the Spanish armies. The rest 
of the rebellious nobles made humble submission. The people 
found they had nothing to gain from any dominant party, and 
resigned themselves to another long period of political and social 
slavery. The magistrates abandoned, in despair and disgust, their 
high claims to political rights, while the young king, on his bed 
of justice, decreed that parliament should no more presume to 
discuss or meddle with state affairs. The submissive parliament 
registered, without a murmur, the edict which gave a finishing 
stroke to its liberties. The Fronde war was a complete failure, 
because all parties usurped powers which did not belong to 
them, and were jealous of the rights of each other. The nobles 
wished to control the king, and the magistracy put itself forward 
to represent the commons, when the states general alone was the 
ancient and true representative of the nation, and the body to 
which it should have appealed. The Fronde rebellion was a 
failure, because it did not consult constitutional forms, because it 
formed unnatural alliances, and because it did not throw itself 
upon the force of immortal principles, but sought to support itself 
by mere physical strength rather than by moral power, which 
alone is the secret and the glory of all great internal changes. 

The return of Cardinal Mazarin to power, as the minister of 
Louis XIV., was the era of his grandeur. His first care was to 
restore the public finances ; his second was to secure his personal 
aggrandizement. He obtained all the power which Richelieu had 
enjoyed, and i-eproved the king, and such a king as Louis XIV., as 
he would a schoolboy. He enriched and elevated his relatives ; 



132 DEATH OF MAZARIN. [CHAP. XI. 

married them into the first families of France ; and amassed a 
fortune of two hundifed millions of livres, the largest perhaps that 
any subject has secured in modern times. He even aspired to the 
popedom ; but this greatest of all human dignities he was not 
permitted to obtain. A fatal malady seized him, and the phy- 
sicians told him he had not two months to live. Some days after, 
he was seen in his dressing-gown, among his pictures, of which 
he was extravagantly fond, and exclaimed, " Must I quit all these ? 
Look at that Correggio, this Venus of Titian, this incomparable 
deluge of Carracci. Farewell, dear pictures, that I have loved so 
dearly, and that have cost me so much." 

The minister lingered awhile, and amused his last hours with 
cards. He expired in 1661 ; and no minister after him was in- 
trusted with such great power. He died unlamented, even by his 
sovereign, whose throne he had preserved, and whose fortune he 
had repaired. He had great talents of conversation, was witty, 
artful, and polite. He completed the work which Eichelieu began; 
and, at his death, his master was the most absolute monarch that 
ever reigned in France. 



References. — Louis XIV. et son Siecle. Miss Pardoe's History of 
Louis XIV. Voltaire's and James's Lives of Louis XIV. Memoirs of 
Cardinal Richelieu. Memoirs of Mazarin. Memoires de Mademoiselle de 
Montpensier. Memoires du Due de Saint Simon. Life of Cardinal de 
Retz, in which the Fronde war is well traced. Memoir of the Duchess de 
Longueville. Lacretelle's History of France. Rankin's History of France. 
Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's History, in Lardner's Cyclopedia. 
Bowring's History of the Huguenots. James's Life of the Prince of Conde. 
The above works are the most accessible to the American student. 



CHAP. XII.] ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 133 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I. 

While the Protestants in Germany were struggling for religious 
liberty, and the Parliaments of France for political privileges, 
there was a contest going on in England for the attainment of the 
same great ends. With the accession of James I. a new era 
commences in English history, marked by the growing im- 
portance of the House of Commons, and their struggles for 
civil and religious liberty. The Commons had not been entirely 
silent during the long reign of Elizabeth, but members of them 
occasionally dared to assert those rights of which Englishmen 
are proud. The queen was particularly sensitive to any thing 
which pertained to her prerogative, and generally sent to the 
Tower any man who boldly expressed his opinion on subjects 
which she deemed that she and her ministers alone had the right 
to discuss. These forbidden subjects were those which pertained' 
to the management of religion, to her particular courts, and to her 
succession to the crown. She never made an attack on what she 
conceived to be the constitution, but only zealously defended 
what she considered as her own rights. And she was ever 
sufficiently wise to yield a point to the commons, after she had 
asserted her power, so that concession, on her part, had all the 
appearance of bestowing a favor. She never pushed matters to 
extremity, but gave way in good time. And in this policy she 
showed great wisdom ; so that, in spite of all her crimes and 
caprices, she ever retained the affections of the English people. 

The son of her rival, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, ascended the 
throne, (1603,) under the title of James I., and was the first of 
the Stuart kings. He had been king of Scotland under the title of 
James VI., and had there many difficulties to contend with, chiefly 
in consequence of the turbulence of the nobles, and the bigotry 
of the reformers. He was eager to take possession of his English 
inheritance, but was so poor that he could not begin his journey 
12 



134 THE GENIUS OF THE REIGN OF JAMES. [CHAP. XII. 

until Cecil sent him the money. He was crowned, with great 
ceremony, in Westminster Abbey, on the 25th of June. 

The first acts of his reign were unpopular ; and it was subse- 
quently disgraced by a continual succession of political blunders. 
To detail these, or to mention all the acts of this king, or the 
events of his inglorious reign would fill a volume larger than this 
History. Moreover, from this period, modern histoiy becomes very 
complicated and voluminous, and all that can be attempted in this 
work is, an allusion to the principal events. 
{ The genius of this reign is the contest between royal prerogative 
and popular freedom. The proceedings in parliament were charac- 
terized by a spirit of boldness and resistance never before manifested, 
while the speeches and acts of the king were marked by an obsti- 
nate and stupid pertinacity to those privileges which absolute kings 
extorted from their subjects in former ages of despotism and dark- 
ness. The boldness of the Commons and the bigotry of the king 
led to incessant disagreement and discontent ; and, finally, under 
Charles L, to open rupture, revolution, and strife. 

The progress of this insurrection and contest furnishes one of 
the most important and instructive chapters in the histoiy of society, 
'-and the young student cannot make himself too familiar with de- 
tails, of which our limits forbid a description. 

The great Puritan contest here begins, destined not to be closed 
until after two revolutions, and nearly a century of anxiety, suffer- 
ing, and strife. Providence raised up, during the whole of the 
Stuart dynasty, great patriots and statesmen, who had an eye to 
perceive the true interests and rights of the people, and a heart 
and a hand to defend them. No period and no nation have ever 
been more fertile in great men than England was from the acces- 
sion of James I. to the abdication of James II., a period of eighty- 
five years. Shakspeare, Raleigh, Coke, Bacon, Cecil, Selden, 
Pym, Went worth, Hollis, Leigh ton, Taylor, Baxter, Howe, Crom- 
well, Hampden, Blake, Vane, Milton, Clarendon, Burnet, Shaftes- 
bury, are some of the luminaries which have shed a light down 
to our own times, and will continue to shine through all future 
ages. They were not all contemporaneous, but they all took part, 
more or less, on one side or the other, in the great contest of 
the seventeenth centuiy. Whether statesmen, warriors, poets, or 



CHAP. XII.] CONSPIRACY OF SIR "WALTER RALEIGH. 135 

divines, they alike made their age an epoch, and their little island 
the moral centre of the world. 

But we must first allude to some of the events of the reign of 
James I., before the struggle between prerogative and liberty 
attracted the attention of Europe. 

One of the first was the conspiracy against the king, in which 
Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Ealeigh were engaged. We lament 
that so great a favorite with all readers as Sir Walter Raleigh, 
so universal a genius, a man so learned, accomplished, and brave, 
should have even been suspected of a treasonable project, and 
without the excuse of some traitors, that they wished to deliver 
their country from tyranny. But there is no perfection in man. 
Sir Walter was restless and ambitious, and had an eye mainly to 
his own advantage. His wit, gallantry, and chivalry were doubt- 
less very pleasing qualities in a courtier, but are not the best quali- 
ties of a patriot. He was disappointed because he could not keep 
pace with Cecil in the favor of his sovereign, and because the 
king took away the monopolies he had enjoyed. Hence, in con- 
junction with other disappointed politicians, he was accused of an 
attempt to seize the king's person, to change the ministry, and to 
place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. Against Raleigh 
appeared no less a person than the great Coke, who prosecuted 
him with such vehemence that Raleigh was found guilty, and 
condemned to death. But the proofs of his guilt are not so clear 
as the evidence of his ambition ; and much must be attributed to 
party animosity. Though condemned, he was not executed ; but 
lived to write many more books, and make many more voyages, 
to the great delight both of the cultivated and the adventurous. 
That there was a plot to seize the king is clear, and the conspira- 
tors were detected and executed. Raleigh was suspected of this, 
and perhaps was privy to it ; but the proofs of his crime were not 
apparent, except to the judges, and to the attorney-general, Coke, 
who compared the different plots to Samson's foxes, joined in the 
tails, though their heads were separated. 

The most memorable event at this time in the domestic history 
of the kingdom was the Gunpowder Plot, planned by Catesby and 
other disappointed and desperate Catholics for the murder of the 
king, and the destruction of both houses of parliament. Knowing 



136 GUNPOWDER PLOT. [CHAP. XII. 

the sympathies of James for their religion, the Catholics had ex- 
pected toleration, at least. But when persecution continued against 
them, some reckless and unprincipled men united in a design to 
blow up the parliament. Percy, a relation of the Earl of North- 
umberland, was concerned in the plot, and many of the other con- 
spirators were men of good families and fortunes, but were implaca- 
ble bigots. They hired a cellar, under the parliament house, which 
had been used for coals ; and there they deposited thirty-one barrels 
of gunpowder, waiting several months for a favorable time to perpe- 
trate one of the most horrid crimes ever projected. It was resolved 
that Guy Fawkes, one of the number, should set fire to the train. 
They were all ready, and the 5th of November, 1605, was at 
hand, the day to which parliament was prorogued ; but Percy 
was anxious to save his kinsman from the impending ruin, Sir 
Everard Digby wished to warn some of his friends, and Tresham 
was resolved to give his brother-in-law, Lord Mounteagle, a cau- 
tion. It seems that this peer received a letter so peculiar, that he 
carried it to Cecil, who showed it to the king, and the king de- 
tected or suspected a plot. The result was, that the cellar was 
explored by the lord chamberlain, and Guy Fawkes himself was 
found, with all the materials for striking a light, near the vault in 
which the coal and the gunpowder were deposited. He was seized, 
interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned ; but the wretch would not 
reveal the names of his associates, although he gloried in the 
crime he was about to commit, and alleged, as his excuse, that 
violent diseases required desperate remedies, the maxim of the 
Jesuits. But most of the conspirators revealed their guilt by flight. 
They might have escaped, had they fled from the kingdom ; but 
they hastened only into the country to collect their friends, and 
head an insurrection, which, of course, was easily suppressed. 
The leaders in this plot were captured and executed, and richly 
deserved their fate, although it was clear that they were infatuated. 
But in all crime there is infatuation. It was suspected that the 
Jesuits were at the bottom of the conspiracy ; and the whole Catho- 
lic population suffered reproach from the blindness and folly of a 
few bigots, from whom no sect or party ever yet has been free. 
But there is no evidence that any of the Catholic clergy were even 
privy to the intended crime, which was known only to the absolute 



CHAP. XII.] PERSECUTION OF THE CATHOLICS. 137 

plotters. Some Jesuits were indeed suspected, arrested, tortured, 
and executed ; but no evidence of guilt was brought against them 
sufficient to convict them. But their acquittal was impossible in 
such a state of national alarm and horror. Nothing ever made a 
more lasting and profound impression on the English mind than 
this intended crime ; and it strengthened the prejudices against the 
Catholics even more than the persecutions under Queen Mary. 
Had the crime been consummated, it would only have proved a 
blunder. It would have shocked and irritated the nation beyond 
all self-control ; and it is probable that the whole Catholic popula- 
tion would have been assassinated, or hunted out, as victims for 
the scaffold, in eveiy corner of England. It proved, however, a 
great misfortune, and the severest blow Catholicism ever received 
in England. Thus God overrules all human wickedness. There 
was one person who suffered, in consequence of the excited sus- 
picions of the nation, whose fate we cannot but compassionate ; 
and this person was the Earl of Northumberland, who was sen- 
tenced to pay a fine of thirty thousand pounds, to be deprived of 
all his offices, and to be imprisoned in the Tower for life, and 
simply because he was the head of the Catholic party, and a pro- 
moter of toleration. Indeed, penal statutes against the Catholics 
were fearfully multiplied. No Catholic was permitted to appear 
at court, or live in London, or within ten miles of it, or remove, on 
any occasion, more than five miles from his home, without especial 
license. No Catholic recusant was permitted to practise surgery, 
physic, or law ; to act as judge, clerk, or officer of any court or 
corporation ; or perform the office of administrator, executor, or 
guardian. Every Catholic, who refused to have his child baptized 
by a Protestant, was obliged to pay, for each omission, one hun- 
dred pounds. Every person keeping a Catholic servant, was com- 
pelled to pay ten pounds a month to government. Moreover, every 
recusant was outlawed ; his house might be broken open ; his 
books and furniture destroyed ; and his horses and arms taken from 
him. Such was the severe treatment with which the Catholics, 
even those who were good citizens, were treated by our fathers in 
England ; and this persecution was defended by some of the 
greatest jurists, divines, and statesmen which England has pro- 
12* 



138 ROBERT CARR, EARL OF SOMERSET. [CHAP. XII. 

duced. And yet some maintain that there has been no progress 
in society, except in material civilization ! 

One of the peculiarities of the reign of James was, the ascen- 
dency which favorites obtained over him, so often the mark of a 
weak and vacillating mind. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had their 
favorites ; but they were ministers of the royal will. Moreover, 
they, like Wolsey, Cromwell, Burleigh, and Essex, were great 
men, and worthy of the trust reposed in them. But James, with 
all his kingcraft and statecraft, with all his ostentation and boasts of 
knowledge and of sagacity, reposed his confidence in such a man 
as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. It is true he also had great men 
to serve him ; Cecil was his secretary, Bacon was his chancellor, 
and Coke was his chief justice. But Carr and Villiers rose above 
them all in dignity and honor, and were the companions and confi- 
dential agents of their royal master. 

Robert Carr was a Scottish gentleman, poor and cunning, who 
had early been taught that personal beauty, gay dress, and lively 
manners, would make his fortune at court. He first attracted the 
attention of the king at a tilting match, at which he was the esquire 
to Lord Dingwall. In presenting his lord's shield to the king, 
his horse fell and threw him at James's feet. His leg was broken, 
but his fortune was made. James, struck with his beauty and 
youth, and moved by the accident, sent his own surgeon to him, 
visited him himself, and even taught him Latin, seeing that the 
scholastic part of his education had been neglected. Indeed, James 
would have made a much better schoolmaster than king ; and his 
pedantry and conceit were beyond all bounds, so that Bacon styled 
him, either in irony or sycophancy, " the Solomon of the age." 
Carr now became the pet of the learned monarch. He was 
knighted, rich presents were bestowed on him, all bowed down to 
him as they would have done to a royal mistress ; and Cecil and 
Suffolk vied with each other in their attempts to secure the favor 
of his friends. He gradually eclipsed every great noble at court, 
was created Viscount Rochester, received the Order of the Garter, 
and, when Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury, died, received the post of 
the Earl of Suffolk as lord chamberlain, he taking Cecil's place 
as treasurer. Rochester, in effect, became prime minister, as Cecil 
had been. He was then created Earl of Somerset, in order that 



CHAP. XII.] GREATNESS AND FALL OF SOMERSET. 139 

he might marry the Countess of Essex, the most beautiful and 
fascinating woman at the English court. She was daughter of the 
Earl of Suffolk, and granddaughter of the old Duke of Norfolk, 
executed in 1572, and, consequently, belonged to the first family 
in the realm. She was married to Essex at the age of thirteen, 
but treated him with contempt and coldness, being already enam- 
ored of the handsome favorite. That she might marry Carr she 
obtained a divorce from her husband on the most frivolous grounds, 
and through the favor of the king, who would do any thing for the 
man he delighted to honor. She succeeded in obtaining her end, 
and caused the ruin of all who opposed her wishes. But she proved 
a beautiful demon, a fascinating fury, as might be expected from 
such an unprincipled woman, although ennobled by " the blood of 
all the Howards." Her reign lasted, however, only during the 
ascendency of her husband. For a time, " glorious days were 
succeeded by as glorious nights, when masks and dancings had 
a continual motion, and when banquetings rapt up the spirit of 
the sacred king, and kept it from descending to earthly things." 
But whatever royal favor stamps, royal favor, like fashion, leaves. 
Carr was supplanted by Villiers, and his doom was sealed. For 
the murder of his old friend Sir Thomas Overbury, who died in 
the Tower, as it was then supposed by poison, he and his countess 
were tried, found guilty, and disgraced. But he was not executed, 
and, after a few years' imprisonment, retired to the country, with 
his lady, to reproach and hate each other. Their only child, the 
Lady Anna Carr, a woman of great honor and virtue, married the 
first duke of Bedford, and was the mother of Lord Russell who 
died on the scaffold, a martyr to liberty, in the reign of Charles II. 
The origin of the noble families of England is curious. Some few 
are descended from successful Norman chieftains, who came over 
with William the Conqueror, and whose merit was in their sword. 
Others are the descendants of those who, as courtiers, statesmen, 
or warriors, obtained great position, power, and wealth, during 
former reigns. Many owe their greatness to the fact that they are 
the offspring of the illegitimate children of kings, or the descend- 
ants of the ignoble minions of kings. Some few are enrolled in 
the peerage on account of their great wealth ; and a still smaller 
number for the eminent services they have rendered their country, 



140 DUKE OP BUCKINGHAM. [CHAP. XII. 

like Wellington, Brougham, or Ellenborough. A vast majority 
can boast only the merit or the successful baseness of their an- 
cestors. But all of them are interlinked by marriages, and there- 
fore share together the glory or the shame of their progenitors, 
so far as glory and shame can be transmitted from father to son, 
independently of all individual virtue or vice. 

Carr was succeeded in the royal favor by Villiers, and he, 
more fortunate, ever retained the ascendency over the mind and 
heart of James, as well as of his son Charles I. George Villiers 
owed his fortune, not to his birth or talents, but to his fine clothes, 
his Parisian manners, smooth face, tall figure, and bland smiles. 
He became cup-bearer, then knight, then gentleman of the privy 
council, then earl, then marquis, and finally duke of Buckingham, 
lord high admiral, warden of the Cinque Ports, high steward of 
Westminster, constable of Windsor Castle, and chief justice in 
eyre of the parks and forests. " The doting and gloating king " 
had taught Somerset Latin ; he attempted to teach Buckingham 
divinity, and called him ever by the name of " Steenie." And 
never was there such a mixture of finery, effeminacy, insolence, 
and sycophancy in any royal minion before or since. Beau 
Brummell never equalled him in dress, Wolsey in magnificence, 
Mazarin in peculation, Walpole in corruption, Jeffries in inso- 
lence, or Norfolk in pride. He was the constant companion of the 
king, to whose vices he pandered, and through him the royal favor 
flowed. But no rewards, or favors, or greatness satisfied him ; 
not so much because he was ambitious, as because, like a spoiled 
child, he did not appreciate the magnitude of the gifts which 
were bestowed on him. Nor did he ever know his place ; but 
made love to the queen of France herself, when he was sent on 
an embassy. He trampled on the constitution, subverted the laws, 
ground down the people by taxes, and taught the king to disre- 
gard the affections of his subjects, and to view them as his slaves. 
But such a triumph of iniquity could not be endured ; and Bucking- 
ham was finally assassinated, after he had gained an elevation higher 
than any English subject ever before attained, except Wolsey, 
and without the exercise of any qualities which entitled him to a 
higher position than a master of ceremonies at a fashionable ball. 
It is easy to conceive that such a minion should arrive at power 



CHAP. XII.] LORD BACON. 141 

under such a monarch as James ; but how can we understand that 
such a man as Lord Bacon, the chancellor, the philosopher, the 
statesman, the man of learning, genius, and wisdom, should have 
bowed down to the dust, in vile subserviency, to this infamous 
favorite of the king. Surely, what lessons of the frailty of human 
nature does the reign of James teach us ! The most melancholy 
instance of all the singular cases of human inconsistency, at 
this time, is the conduct of the great Bacon himself, who reached 
the zenith of his power during this reign. It is not the receiving 
of a bribe, while exercising the highest judicial authority in the 
land, on which alone his shame rests, but his insolent conduct to 
his inferiors, his acquiescence in wrong, his base and unmanly 
sycophancy, his ingratitude to his friends and patrons, his intense 
selfishness and unscrupulous ambition while climbing to power, 
and, above all, his willingness to be the tool of a despot who 
trampled on the rights and liberties which God had given him to 
guard ; and this in an age of light, of awakened intelligence, 
when even his crabbed rival Coke was seeking to explode the 
abuses of the Dark Ages. But " the difference between the soaring 
angel and the creeping snake, was but a type of the difference 
between Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the attorney-general, 
Bacon seeking for truth and Bacon seeking for the Seals." As 
the author of the Novum Organum, as the pioneer of modern 
science, as the calm and patient investigator of nature's laws, as 
the miner and sapper of the old false systems of philosophy which 
enslaved the human mind, as the writer for future generations, 
he has received, as he has deserved, all the glory which ad- 
miring and grateful millions can bestow, of his own nation, and 
of all nations. No name in British annals is more illustrious than 
his, and none which is shaded with more lasting shame. Pope 
alone would have given him an immortality as the " wisest, 
brightest, meanest of mankind." The only defence for the 
political baseness of Bacon — and this is insufficient - — is, that all 
were base around him. The years when he was in power are 
among the darkest and most disgraceful in English history. 

Allusion has been made to the reign of favorites ; but this was 
but a small part of the evils of the times. Every thing abroad 
and at home was mismanaged. Patents of monopolies were 



142 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF RALEIGH. [CHAP. XII. 

multiplied ; the most grievous exactions were made ; indefensible 
executions were ordered ; the laws were perverted ; justice was 
sold ; and an ignominious war was closed by a still more igno- 
minious peace. The execution of Raleigh was a disgrace to the 
king, the court, and the nation, because the manner of it was so 
cowardly and cruel. He had been convicted, in the early part of 
the reign, of treason, and committed to the Towner. There he 
languished twelve years, amusing himself by writing a universal 
history, and in seeking the elixir of life ; for, in the mysteries of 
chemistry, and in the mazes of historical lore, as in the intrigues 
of courts, and dangers of camps, he was equally at home. 

He was released from his prison in order to take command of 
an adventurous expedition to Guiana in quest of gold. In a 
former voyage he had visited the banks of the Oronoco in quest 
of the city of Manoa, where precious stones and gold existed in 
exhaustless treasures. That El Dorado he could not find ; but 
now, in prison, he proposed to Secretary Winwood an expedition 
to secure what he had before sought in vain. The king wavered 
a while between his cupidity and fear ; for, while he longed for 
gold, as the traveller does for water on the desert of Sahara, he 
was afraid of giving offence to the Spanish ambassador. But his 
cupidity was the stronger feeling, and Raleigh was sent with 
fourteen ships to the coasts of South America. The expedition 
was in every respect unfortunate to Raleigh and to the king. 
The gallant commander lost his private fortune and a promising 
son, the Spaniards attacked his armament, his troops mutinied 
and deserted, and he returned to England, with a sullied fame, to 
meet a disappointed sovereign and implacable enemies. In such 
times, failure is tantamount to crime, and Raleigh was tried for 
offences he never committed. The most glaring injustice, harsh- 
ness, and sophistry were resorted to, even by Bacon ; but still 
Raleigh triumphantly defended himself. But no innocence or 
eloquence could save him ; and he was executed on the sentence 
which had been pronounced against him for treason fifteen years 
before. To such meanness and cowardice did his enemies resort 
to rid the world of a universal genius, whose crime — if crime 
he ever committed — had long been consigned to oblivion. 

But we cannot longer dwell on the lives of eminent individuals 



CHAP. XII.] ENCROACHMENTS OF JAMES. 143 

during the reign of James. However interesting may be the 
details of their fortunes, their histoiy dwindles into insignificance 
when compared with the great public injuries which an infatuated 
monarch inflicted. Not cruel in his temper, not stained by per- 
sonal crimes, quite learned in Greek and Latin, but weak and igno- 
rant of his duties as a king, he was inclined to trespass on the rights 
of his subjects. As has been already remarked, the genius of his reign 
was the contest between prerogative and liberty. The Commons did 
not acquiesce in his measures, or yield to his wishes, as they did 
during the reign of Elizabeth. He had a notion that the duty of 
a king was to command, and that of the subject was to obey, in 
all things ; that kings ruled by divine right, and were raised by the 
Almighty above all law. But such notions were not approved by 
a parliament which swarmed with Puritans, and who were not 
careful to conceal their views from the king. They insisted on 
their privileges as tenaciously as the king insisted on his prerogative, 
and often came into collision with him. And they instituted an 
inquiry into monopolies, and attacked the monstrous abuses of 
purveyance, and the incidents of feudal tenure, by which, among 
other things, the king became guardian to wards, and received the 
profits of their estates during their minority. These feudal 
claims, by which the king, in part, received his revenue, were 
every year becoming less valuable to the crown, and more offen- 
sive to the people. The king, at length, was willing to compound, 
and make a bargain with the Commons, by which he was to 
receive two hundred thousand pounds a year, instead of the privi- 
leges of wardship, and other feudal rights. But his necessities 
required additional grants, which the Commons were unwilling 
to bestow; and the king then resorted to the sale of monopolies, 
and even peerages, sent the more turbulent of the Commons to 
prison, and frequently dissolved parliament. He was resolved 
to tax the people if supplies were not granted him, while the 
Commons maintained that no taxation could be allowed without 
their consent. Moreover, the Commons refused to grant such 
supplies as the king fancied he needed, unless certain grievances 
were redressed, among which was the High Commission Court, an 
arbitrary tribunal, which fined and imprisoned without appeal. 
But James, though pressed for money, stood firm to his notions 



144 QUAHREL BETWEEN JAMES AND PARLIAMENT. [CHAP. XII. 

of prerogative, and supplied his most urgent necessities by illegal 
means. People were dragged to the Star Chamber, on ail kinds 
of accusations, that they might be sentenced to pay enormous 
fines ; new privileges and monopolies were invented, and new 
dignities created. Baronets, who are hereditary knights, were 
instituted, and baronetcies were sold for one thousand pounds each. 

But the monopolies which the king granted, in order to raise 
money, did not inflame the Commons so much as the projected 
marriage between the prince of Wales and the infanta of Spain. 
James flattered himself that this Spanish match, to arrange which 
he had sent Buckingham to the court of Madrid, would procure 
the restitution of the Palatinate to the elector, who had been driven 
from his throne. But the Commons thought differently. They, 
as well as the people generally, were indignant in view of the 
inactivity of the government in not sending aid to the distressed 
Protestants of Germany ; and the loss of the Palatinate was re- 
garded as a national calamity. They saw no good which would 
accrue from an alliance with the enemies and persecutors of these 
Protestants ; but, on the other hand, much evil. As the constitu- 
tional guardians, therefore, of the public welfare and liberty, they 
framed a remonstrance to the king, representing the overgrown 
power of Austria as dangerous to the ; liberties of Europe, and 
entreated his majesty to take up arms against Spain, which was 
allied with Austria, and by whose wealth Austrian armies were 
supported. 

James was inflamed with indignation at this remonstrance, 
which militated against all his maxims of government ; and he 
forthwith wrote a letter to the speaker of the House of Commons, 
commanding him to admonish the members " not to presume to 
meddle with matters of state which were beyond their capacity, and 
especially not to touch on his son's marriage." The Commons, not 
dismayed, and conscious of strength, sent up a new remonstrance, 
in which they affirmed that they zoere entitled to interpose with 
their counsel in all matters of state, and that entire freedom of 
speech was their ancient and undoubted right, transmitted from 
their ancestors. The king, in reply, told the Commons, that " their 
remonstrance was more like a denunciation of war, than an address 
of dutiful subjects, and that their pretension to inquire into state 



CHAP. XII.] DEATH OF JAMES I. 145 

affairs was a plenipotence to which none of their ancestors, even 
during the weakest reigns, had ever dared to aspire." He farther 
insinuated that their privileges were derived from royal favor. On 
this, the Commons framed another protest, — that the liberties, fran- 
chises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient 
and undoubted birthright of Englishmen, and that eveiy member 
has the right of freedom of speech. This protest they entered 
upon their journals, upon which James lost all temper, ordered the 
clerk to bring him the journals, erased the protestation with his 
own hand, in presence of the judges and the council, and then 
dissolved the parliament. 

Nothing else of note occurred in this reign, except the pros- 
ecution of the Spanish match, which was so odious to the 
nation that Buckingham, to preserve his popularity, broke off the 
negotiations, and by a system of treachery and duplicity as 
hateful as were his original efforts to promote the match. War 
with Spain was the result of the insult offered to the infanta and 
the court. An alliance was now made with France, and Prince 
Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. The 
Commons then granted abundant supplies for war, to recover the 
Palatinate ; and liberty of conscience was granted by the monarch, 
on the demands of Richelieu, to the Catholics — so long and 
peTseveringly oppressed. 

Shortly after, (March 27, 1625,) King James died at Theobalds, 
his favorite palace, from a disease produced by anxiety, gluttony, 
and sweet wines, after a reign in England of twenty-two years ; 
and his son, Charles I., before the breath was out of his body, was 
proclaimed king in his stead. 

The course pursued by James I. was adopted by his son ; and, as 
their reigns were memorable for the same struggle, we shall con- 
sider them together until revolution gave the victory to the ad- 
vocates of freedom. 

Charles I. was twenty-five years of age when he began his 
reign. In a moral and social point of view he was a more re- 
spectable man than his father, but had the same absurd notions of 
the royal prerogative, the same contempt of the people, the same 
dislike of constitutional liberty, and the same resolution of main- 
taining the absolute power of the crown, at any cost. He was, 
13 



'146 THE STRUGGLE OF CLASSES. [CHAP. XII. 

moreover, perplexed by the same embarrassments, was involved 
in debt, had great necessities, and was dependent on the House of 
Commons for aid to prosecute his wars and support the dignity of 
the crown. But he did not consider the changing circumstances 
and spirit of the age, and the hostile and turbulent nature of his 
people. He increased, rather than diminished, the odious monopo- 
lies which irritated the nation during the reign of his father ; he 
clung to all the old feudal privileges ; he retained the detestable 
and frivolous Buckingham as his chief minister ; and, when Buck- 
ingham was assassinated, he chose others even more tyrannical and 
unscrupulous ; he insisted on taxing the people without their con- 
sent, threw contempt on parliament, and drove the nation to rebel- 
lion. In all his political acts he was infatuated, after making every 
allowance for the imperfections of human nature. A wiser man 
would have seen the rising storm, and might possibly have averted 
it. But Charles never dreamed of it, until it burst in all its fury 
on his devoted head, and consigned him to the martyr's grave. 
We pity his fate, but lament still more his blindness. And so 
great was this blindness, that it almost seems as if Providence had 
marked him out to be a victim on the altar of human progress. 

With the reign of Charles commences unquestionably the most 
exciting period of English history, and a period to which historians 
have given more attention than to any other great historical era, 
the French Revolution alone excepted. The attempt to describe 
the leading events in this exciting age and reign would be, in this 
connection, absurd ; and yet some notice of them cannot be 
avoided. 

For more than ten centuries, great struggles have been going 
on in society between the dominant orders and sects. The victo- 
ries gained by the oppress'ed millions, over their different masters, 
constitute what is called the Progress of Society. Defenders of 
the people have occasionally arisen from orders to which they did 
not belong. When, then, any great order defended the cause of 
the people against the tyranny and selfishness of another order, 
then the people have advanced a step in civil and social freedom. 

When Feudalism weighed fearfully upon the people, " the clergy 
sought, on their behalf, a little reason, justice, and humanity, and 
the poor man had no other asylum than the churches, no other 



CHAP. XII.] RISE OF POPULAR POWER. 147 

protectors than the priests ; and, as the priests offered food to the 
moral nature of man, they acquired a great ascendency, and the 
preponderance passed from the nobles to the clergy." By the aid 
of the church, royalty also rose above feudalism, and aided the 
popular cause. 

The church, having gained the ascendency, sought then to 
enslave the kings of the earth. But royalty, borrowing help from 
humiliated nobles and from the people, became the dominant 
power in Europe. 

In these struggles between nobles and the clergy, and between 
the clergy and kings, the people had acquired political importance. 
They had obtained a knowledge of their rights and of their 
strength ; and they were determined to maintain them. They 
liked not the tyranny of either nobles, priests, or kings ; but they 
bent all their energies to suppress the power of the latter, since 
the two former had been already humiliated. 

The struggle of the people against royalty is preeminently the 
genius of the English Revolution. It is to be doubted whether any 
king could have resisted the storm of popular fury which hurled 
Charles from his throne. But no king could have managed worse 
than he ; no king could be more unfortunately and unpropitiously 
placed ; and his own imprudence and folly hastened the catas- 
trophe. 

The House of Commons, which had acquired great strength, 
spirit, and popularity during the reign of James, fully perceived 
the difficulties and necessities of Charles, but made no adequate 
or generous effort to relieve him from them. Some of the more 
turbulent rejoiced in them. They knew that kings, like other men, 
were selfish, and that it was not natural for people to part with their 
privileges and power without a struggle, even though this power 
was injurious to the interests of society. In the Middle Ages, 
barons, bishops, and popes had fought desperately in the struggle 
of classes ; and it was only from their necessities that either kings 
or people had obtained what they demanded. King Charles, no 
more than Pope Boniface VIII., would surrender, as a boon to man, 
without compulsion, his supposed omnipotence. 

The king ascended his throne burdened by the debts of his 
father, and by an expensive war, which the Commons incited, but 



148 QUARREL BETWEEN THE KING AND THE COMMONS. [CHAP. XII. 

would not pay for. 4 They granted him, to meet his difficulties 
and maintain his honor, the paltry sum of one hundred and 
forty thousand pounds, and the duties of tonnage and poundage, 
not for life, as was customaiy, but for a year. Nothing could be 
more provoking to a young king. Of course, the money was soon 
spent, and the king wanted more, and had a right to expect more. 
But, if the Commons granted what the king required, he would be 
made independent of them, and he would rule tyrannically, as the 
kings of England did before him. So they resolved not to grant 
necessary supplies to carry on the government, unless the king 
would part with the prerogatives of an absolute prince, and those 
old feudal privileges which were an abomination in the eyes of 
the people. Charles was not the man to make such a bargain. 
Few kings, in his age, would have seen its necessity. But neces- 
sity there was. Civil war was inevitable, without a compromise, 
provided both parties were resolved on maintaining their ground. 
But Charles fancied that the Commons could be browbeaten and 
intimidated into submission ; and, moreover, in case he was brought 
into collision with his subjects, he fancied that he was stronger than 
they, and could put down the spirit of resistance. In both of 
these suppositions he was wrong. The Commons were firm, and 
were stronger than he was, because they had the sympathy of the 
people. They believed conscientiously, especially the Puritans, 
that he was wrong ; that God gave him no divine right to enslave 
them, and that they were entitled, by the eternal principles of jus- 
tice, and by the spirit of the constitution, to civil and religious 
liberty, in the highest sense of that term. They believed that their 
rights were inalienable and absolute ; that, among them, they 
could not be taxed without their own consent ; and that their consti- 
tutional guardians, the Commons, should be unrestricted in debate. 
These notions of the people were ideas. On ideas all govern- 
ments rest. No throne could stand a day unless the people felt 
they owed it their allegiance. When the main support of the 
throne of Charles was withdrawn, the support of popular ideas, 
and this support given to the House of Commons, at issue with the 
sovereign, what could he do ? What could Louis XVI. do one 
hundred and fifty years afterwards ? What could Louis Philippe 
do in our times ? A king, without the loyalty of the people, is 



CHAP. XII.] THE COUNSELLORS OF CHARLES. 149 

a phantom, a mockery, and a delusion, unless he have physical force 
to sustain him ; and even then armies will rebel, if they feel they 
are not bound to obey, and if it is not for their interest to obey. 

Now Charles had neither loyalty nor force to hold him on his 
throne. The agitations of an age of unprecedented boldness in 
speculations destroyed the former ; the House of Commons would 
not grant supplies to secure the latter. And they would not grant 
supplies, because they loved themselves and the cause of the 
people better than they loved their king. In short, it was only by 
his concessions that they would supply his necessities. He would 
not make the concessions, and the contest soon ended in an appeal 
to arms. 

But Charles was not without friends, and some of his advisers 
were men of sagacity and talent. It is true they did not fully 
appreciate the weakness of the king, or the strength of his ene- 
mies ; but they saw his distress, and tried to remove it. They, very 
naturally in such an age, recommended violent courses — to grant 
new monopolies, to extort fines, to exercise all his feudal privileges, 
to pawn the crown jewels, even, in order to raise money ; for 
money, at all events, he must have. They advised him to arrest 
turbulent and incendiary members of the Commons, to prorogue 
and dissolve parliaments, to raise forced loans, to impose new 
duties, to shut up ports, to levy fresh taxes, and to raise armies 
friendly to his cause. In short, they recommended unconstitutional 
measures — measures which both they and the king knew to be 
unconstitutional, but which they justified on the ground of neces- 
sity. And the king, in his perplexity, did what his ministers 
advised. But every person who was sent to the Tower, every new 
tax, every sentence of the Star Chamber, every seizure of prop- 
erty, every arbitrary command, every violation of the liberties of 
the people, raised up new enemies to the king, and inflamed the 
people with new discontents. 

At first the Commons felt that they could obtain what they 
wanted — a redress of grievances, if the king's favorite adviser 
and minister were removed. Besides, they all hated Buckingham, 
— peers, commons, and people, — and all sought his downfall. He 
had no friends among the people, as Essex had in the time of 
Elizabeth. His extravagance, pomp, and insolence disgusted all 
13* 



150 DEATH OF BUCKINGHAM PETITION OF RIGHT. [CHAP. XII. 

orders ; and his reign seemed to be an insult to the nation. Even 
the people regarded him as an upstart, setting himself above the 
old nobility, and enriching himself by royal domains, worth two 
hundred eighty-four thousand three hundred and ninety-five pounds. 
So the Commons violently attacked his administration, and im- 
peached him. But he was shielded by the king, and even appointed 
to command an expedition to relieve La Kochelle, then besieged 
by Richelieu. But he was stabbed by a religious fanatic, by the 
name of Felton, as he was about to embark at Portsmouth. His 
body was removed to London, and he was buried with great state 
in Westminster Abbey, much lamented by the king, who lost his 
early friend, one of the worst ministers, but not the worst man, 
which that age despised, (1628.) 

Meanwhile the indignant Commons persevered with their work. 
They passed what is called the " Petition of Right," — a string 
of resolutions which asserted that no freeman ought to be detained 
in prison, without being brought to trial, and that no taxes could 
be lawfully levied, without consent of the Commons — the two 
great pillars of the English constitution, yet truths involved in 
political difficulty, especially in cases of rebellion. The personal 
liberty of the subject is a great point indeed ; and the act of 
habeas corpus, passed in later times, is a great step in popular 
freedom ; but, if never to be suspended, no government could 
guard against conspiracy in revolutionary times. 

The Petition of Right, however, obtained the king's assent, 
though unwillingly, grudgingly, and insincerely given ; and the 
Commons, gratified for once, voted to the king supplies. 

But Charles had no notion of keeping his word, and soon 
resorted to unconstitutional measures, as before. But he felt the 
need of able counsellors. His " dear Steenie " was dead, and he 
knew not in whom to repose confidence. 

The demon of despotism raised up an agent in the person of 
Thomas Wentworth, a man of wealth, talents, energy, and indom- 
itable courage ; a man who had, in the early part of his career, 
defended the cause of liberty ; who had even suffered imprison- 
ment sooner than contribute to an unlawful loan, and in whom the 
hopes of the liberal party were placed. But he was bribed. His 
patriotism was not equal to his ambition. Seduced by a peerage, 



CHAP. XII.] EARL OF STRAFFORD. 151 

and by the love of power, he went over to the side of the king, 
and defended his arbitrary rule as zealously as he had before 
advocated the cause of constitutional liberty. He was created 
Viscount Wentworth, and afterwards earl of Strafford — the most 
prominent man of the royalist party, and the greatest traitor to 
the cause of liberty which England had ever known. His pic- 
ture, as painted by Vandyke, and hung up in the princely hall 
of his descendant, Earl Fitzwilliam, is a faithful portrait of 
what history represents him — a cold, dark, repulsive, unscrupu- 
lous tyrant, with an eye capable of reading the secrets of the soul, 
a brow lowering with care and thought, and a lip compressed with 
determination, and twisted into contempt of mankind. If Went- 
worth did not love his countrymen, he loved to rule over them ; 
and he gained his end, and continued the prime minister of abso- 
lutism until an insulted nation rose in their might, and placed his 
head upon the block. 

Under the rule of this minister, whom every one feared, the 
Puritans every where fled, preferring the deserts of America, with 
freedom, to the fair lands of England, with liberty trodden under 
foot. The reigns of both James and Charles are memorable for the 
resistance and despair of this intrepid and religious sect, in which 
were enrolled some of the finest minds and most intelligent patriots 
of the country. Pym, Cromwell, Hazelrig, and even Hampden, 
are said to have actually embarked ; but Providence detained them 
in England, they having a mission of blood to perform there. In 
another chapter, the Puritans, their struggles, and principles, will 
be more fully presented ; and we therefore, in this connection, 
abstain from further notice. It may, however, be remarked, that 
they were the most inflexible enemies of the king, and were de- 
termined to give him and his minister no rest until all their ends 
were gained. They hated Archbishop Laud even more intense- 
ly than they hated Wentworth ; and Laud, if possible, was a 
greater foe to religious and civil liberty. Strafford and Laud are 
generally coupled together in the description of the abuses of 
arbitrary power. The churchman, however, was honest and 
sincere, only his views were narrow and his temper irritable. 
His vices were those of the bigot — such as disgraced St. Domi- 
nic or Torquemada, but faults which he deemed excellences. 



152 JOHN HAMPDEN. [CHAP. XII. 

He was an enthusiast in high churchism and toryism ; and his 
zeal in defence of royal prerogative and the divine rights of 
bishops has won for him the panegyrics of his friends, as well 
as the curses of his enemies. For Strafford, too, there is admira- 
tion, but only for his talents, his courage, his strength — the 
qualities which one might see in Milton's Satan, or in Carlyle's 
picture gallery of heroes. 

While the king and his minister were raising forced loans and 
contributions, sending members of the House of Commons to the 
Tower, fining, imprisoning, and mutilating the Puritans, a new 
imposition called out the energies of a great patriot and a great 
man, John Hampden — a fit antagonist of the haughty Went- 
worth. This new exaction was a tax called ship money. 

It was devised by Chief Justice Finch and Attorney-General 
Ney, two subordinate, but unscrupulous tools of despotism, and 
designed to extort money from the inland counties, as well as from 
the cities, for furnishing ships — a demand that Elizabeth did not 
make, in all her power, even when threatened by the Spanish 
Armada. Clarendon even admits that this tax was not for the 
support of the navy, " but for a spring and magazine which 
should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply on all 
occasions." And this the nation completely understood, and 
resolved desperately to resist. 

Hampden, though a wealthy man, refused to pay the share 
assessed on him, which was only twenty shillings, deeming it an 
illegal tax. He was proceeded against by the crown lawyers. 
Hampden appealed to a decision of the judges in regard to the 
legality of the tax, and the king permitted the question to be 
settled by the laws. The trial lasted thirteen days, but ended in 
the condemnation of Hampden, who had shown great moderation, 
as well as courage, and had won the favor of the people. It was 
shortly after this that Hampden, as some historians assert, resolved 
to leave England with his cousin Oliver Cromwell. But the king 
prevented the ships, in which they and other emigrants had em- 
barked, from sailing. Hampden was reserved for new trials and 
new labors. 

About a month after Hampden's condemnation, an insurrection 
broke out in Scotland, which hastened the crisis of revolution. It 



CHAP. XII.] INSURRECTION IN SCOTLAND. 153 

was produced by the attempt of Archbishop Laud to impose the 
English liturgy on the Scottish nation, and supplant Presbyterian- 
ism by Episcopacy. The revolutions in Scotland, from the time 
of Knox, had been popular ; not produced by great men, but by 
the diffusion of great ideas. The people believed in the spiritual 
independence of their church, and not in the supremacy of a king. 
The instant, therefore, that the Episcopal worship was introduced, 
by authority, in the cathedral of Edinburgh, there was an insur- 
rection, which rapidly spread through all parts of the country. 
An immense multitude came to Edinburgh to protest against the 
innovation, and crowded all the houses, streets, and halls of the 
city. The king ordered the petitioners home, without answer- 
ing their complaints. They obeyed the injunction, but soon 
returned in greater numbers. An organization of resistance was 
made, and a provisional government appointed. All classes 
joined the insurgents, who, menaced, but united, at last bound 
themselves, by a solemn league and covenant, not to separate until 
their rights and liberties were secured. A vast majority of all the 
population of Scotland — gentlemen, clergy, citizens, and laborers, 
men, women, and children — assembled in the church, and swore 
fealty to the covenant. Force, of course, was necessary to reduce 
the rebels, and civil war commenced in Scotland. But war in- 
creased the necessities of the king, and he was compelled to make 
peace with the insurgent army. 

Eleven years had now elapsed since the dissolution of the last 
parliament, during which the king had attempted to rule without 
one, and had resorted to all the expedients that the ingenuity of 
the crown lawyers could suggest, in order to extort money. Im- 
posts fallen into desuetude, monopolies abandoned by Elizabeth, 
royal forests extended beyond the limits they had in feudal times, 
fines past all endurance, confiscations without end, imprisonments, 
tortures, and executions, — all marked these eleven years. The 
sum for fines alone, in this period, amounted to more than two 
hundred thousand pounds. The forest of Rockingham was en- 
larged from six to sixty miles in circuit, and the earl of Salisbury 
was fined twenty thousand pounds for encroaching upon it. Indi- 
viduals and companies had monopolies of salt, soap, coals, iron, 
wine, leather, starch, feathers, tobacco, beer, distilled liquors, 



154 LONG PARLIAMENT. [CHAP. XII. 

herrings, butter, potash, linen cloth, rags, hops, gunpowder, and 
divers other articles, which, of course, deranged the whole trade 
of the country. Prynne was fined ten thousand pounds, and had 
his ears cut off, and his nose slit, for writing an offensive book ; 
and his sufferings were not greater than what divers others experi- 
enced for vindicating the cause of truth and liberty. 

At last, the king's necessities compelled him to summon 
another parliament. He had exhausted every expedient to raise 
money. His army clamored for pay ; and he was overburdened 
with debts. 

On the 13th of April, 1640, the new parliament met. It knew 
its strength, and was determined now, more than ever, to exercise 
it. It immediately took the power into its own hands, and from 
remonstrances and petitions it proceeded to actual hostilities ; from 
the denunciation of injustice and illegality, it proceeded to trample 
on the constitution itself. It is true that the members were irri- 
tated and threatened, and some of their number had been seized 
and imprisoned. It is true that the king continued his courses, 
and was resolved on enforcing his measures by violence. The 
struggle became one of desperation on both sides — a struggle for 
ascendency — and not for rights. 

One of the first acts of the House of Commons was the impeach- 
ment of Strafford. He had been just summoned from Ireland, 
where, as lord lieutenant, he had exercised almost regal power 
and regal audacity ; he had been summoned by his perplexed and 
desponding master to assist him by his counsels. Reluctantly he 
obeyed, foreseeing the storm. He had scarcely arrived in London 
when the intrepid Pym accused him of high treason. The Lords 
accepted the accusation, and the imperious minister was committed 
to the Tower. 

The impeachment of Laud soon followed ; but he was too sin- 
cere in his tyranny to understand why he should be committed. 
Nor was he feared, as Strafford was, against whom the vengeance 
of the parliament was especially directed. A secret committee, 
invested with immense powers, was commissioned to scrutinize his 
whole life, and his destruction was resolved upon. On the 22d of 
March his trial began, and lasted seventeen days, during which 
time, unaided, he defended himself against thirteen accusers, with 



CHAP. XII.] EEBELLION OF IRELAND. 155 

consummate ability. Indeed, he had studied his charges and 
despised his adversaries. Under ordinary circumstances, he 
would have been acquitted, for there was not sufficient evidence 
to convict him of high treason ; but an unscrupulous and infuri- 
ated body of men were thirsting for his blood, and it was proposed 
to convict him by bill of attainder ; that is, by act of parliament, 
on its own paramount authority, with or without the law. The 
bill passed, in spite of justice, in spite of the eloquence of the 
attainted earl. He was condemned, and remanded to the 
Tower. 

Had the king been strong he would have saved his minister ; 
had he been magnanimous, he would have stood by Mm to the last. 
But he had neither the power to save him, nor the will to make 
adequate sacrifices. He feebly interposed, but finally yielded, and 
gave his consent to the execution of the main agent of all his 
aggressions on the constitution he had sworn to maintain. Straf- 
ford deserved his fate, although the manner of his execution was 
not according to law. 

A few months after the execution of Strafford, an event occurred 
which proved exceedingly unfortunate to the royal cause ; and this 
was the rebellion of Ireland, and the massacre of the Protestant 
population, caused, primarily, by the oppressive government of 
England, and the harsh and severe measures of the late lord 
lieutenant. In the course of a few weeks, the English and Scottish 
colonies seemed almost uprooted ; one of the most frightful 
butcheries was committed that ever occurred. The Protestants 
exaggerated their loss ; but it is probable that at least fifty thou- 
sand were massacred. The local government of Dublin was 
paralyzed. The English nation was filled with deadly and im- 
placable hostility, not against the Irish merely, but against the 
Catholics every where. It was supposed that there was a general 
conspiracy among the Catholics to destroy the whole nation ; and 
it was whispered that the queen herself had aided the revolted 
Irish. The most vigorous measures were adopted to raise money 
and troops for Ireland. The Commons took occasion of the 
general spirit of discontent and insurrection to prepare a grand 
remonstrance on the evils of the kingdom, which were traced to 
a " coalition of Papists, Arminian bishops and clergymen, and 



156 FLIGHT OF THE KING FROM LONDON. [CHAP. XII. 

evil courtiers and tounsellors." The Commons recited all the 
evils of the last sixteen years, and declared the necessity of taking 
away the root of them, which was the arbitrary power of the sov- 
ereign. The king, in reply, told the Commons that their remon- 
strance was unparliamentary ; that he could not understand what 
they meant by a wicked party ; that bishops were entitled to their 
votes in parliament ; and that, as to the removal of evil counsellors, 
they must name whom they were. The remonstrance was printed 
and circulated by the Commons, which was of more effect than an 
army could have been. 

Thus were affairs rapidly reaching a crisis, when the attempt to 
seize five of the most refractory and able members of parliament 
consummated it. The members were Hollis, Hazelrig, Pym, 
Hampden, and Strode ; and they were accused of high treason. 
This movement of the king was one of the greatest blunders and 
one of the most unconstitutional acts he ever committed. The 
Commons refused to surrender their members ; and then the king 
went down to the house, with an armed force, to seize them. But 
Pym and others got intelligence of the design of Charles, and had 
time to withdraw before he arrived. " The baffled tyrant returned 
to Whitehall with his company of bravoes," while the city of Lon- 
don sheltered Hampden and his friends. The shops were shut, 
the streets were filled with crowds, and the greatest excitement 
prevailed. The friends of Charles, who were inclined to constitu- 
tional measures, were filled with shame. It was now feared that 
the king would not respect his word or the constitution, and, with 
all his promises, was still bent on tyrannical courses. All classes, 
but bigoted royalists, now felt that something must be done 
promptly, or that their liberties would be subverted. 

Then it was, and not till then, that the Commons openly defied 
him, while the king remained in his palace, humbled, dismayed, 
and bewildered, " feeling," says Clarendon, " the trouble and 
agony which usually attend generous minds upon their having 
committed errors ; " or, as Macaulay says, " the despicable repent- 
ance which attends the bungling villain, who, having attempted to 
commit a crime, finds that he has only committed a folly." 

In a few days, the king fled from Whitehall, which he was never 
destined to see again till he was led through it to the scaffold. He 



CHAP. XII.] EISE OF THE PURITANS. 157 

went into the country to raise forces to control the parliament, and 
the parliament made vigorous measures to put itself and the king- 
dom in a state of resistance. On the 23d of April, the king, with 
three hundred horse, advanced to Hull, and were refused admis- 
sion by the governor. This was tantamount to a declaration of 
war. It was so considered. Thirty-two Lords, and sixty members 
of the Commons departed for York to join the king. The parlia- 
ment decreed an army, and civil war began. 

Before this can be traced we must consider the Puritans, which 
is necessary in order fully to appreciate the Revolution The 
reign of Charles I. was now virtually ended, and that of the Par- 
liament and Cromwell had begun. 



Dissensions among the Protestants themselves did not occur until 
the reign of Elizabeth, and were first caused by difficulties about 
a clerical dress, which again led to the advocacy of simpler forms 
of worship, stricter rules of life, more definite forms of faith, and 
more democratic principles of government, both ecclesiastical and 
civil. The first promoters of these opinions were the foreign 
divines who came from Geneva, at the invitation of Cranmer, of 
whom Peter Martyr, Martin Bucer, John a Lasco, were the most 
distinguished. Some Englishmen, also, who had been travelling 
on the continent, brought with them the doctrines of Calvin. 
Among these was Hooper, who, on being nominated to the bish- 
opric of Gloucester, refused to submit to the appointed form of 
consecration and admission. He objected to what he called the 
Aarqnical habits — the square cap, tippet, and surplice, worn by 
bishops. But dissent became more marked and determined when 
the exiles returned to England, on the accession of Elizabeth, and 
who were for advancing the reformation according to their own 
standard. The queen and her advisers, generally, were content 
with King Edward's liturgy ; but the majority of the exiles 
desired the simpler services of Geneva. The new bishops, most 
of whom had been their companions abroad, endeavored to soften 
them for the present, declaring that they would use all their influ- 
ence at court to secure them indulgence. The queen herself con- 
nived at non-conformity, until her government was established, 
14 



158 ORIGINAL DIFFICULTIES AND DIFFERENCES. [CHAP. XII. 

but then firmly declared that she had fixed her standard, and 
insisted on her subjects conforming to it. The bishops, seeing 
this, changed their conduct, explained away then* promises, and 
became severe towards their dissenting brethren. 

The standard of the queen was the Thirty-Nine Articles. She 
admitted that the Scriptures were the sole rule of faith, but declared 
that individuals must interpret Scripture as expounded in the arti- 
cles and formularies of the English church, in violation of the 
great principle of Protestantism, which even the Puritans them- 
selves did not fully recognize — the right and the duty of every 
individual to interpret Scripture himself, whether his interpretation 
interfered with the Established Church or not. 

The first dissenters did not claim this right, but only urged that 
certain points, about which they felt scruples, should be left as 
matters indifferent. On all essential points, they, as well as 
the strictest conformists, believed in the necessity of a uniformity 
of public worship, and of using the sword of the magistrate in 
defence of then doctrines. The standard of conformity, accord- 
ing to the bishops, was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the 
land ; according to the Puritans, the decrees of provincial and 
national synods. 

At first, many of the Puritans overcame their scruples so far as 
to comply with the required oath and accept livings in the Estab- 
lishment. But they indulged in many irregularities, which, during 
the first year of the reign of Elizabeth, were winked at by the 
authorities. " Some performed," says an old author, " divine ser- 
vice in the chancel, others in the body of the church ; some in 
a seat made in the church ; some in a pulpit, with their faces to 
the people ; some keeping precisely to the order of the book ; 
some intermix psalms in metre ; some say with a surplice, and 
others without one. The table stands in the body of the church 
in some places, in others it stands in the chancel ; in some places 
the table stands altarwise, distant from the wall a yard, in others 
in the middle of the chancel, north and south. Some administer 
the communion with surplice and cap, some with a surplice alone, 
others with none ; some with chalice, others with a communion 
cup, others with a common cup ; some with unleavened bread, and 
some with leavened ; some receive kneeling, others standing, 



CHAP. XII.] PERSECUTION DP/KING THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 159 

others sitting ; some baptize in a font, some in a basin ; some sign 
with the sign of the cross, other sign not ; some minister with a 
surplice, others without ; some with a square cap, others with a 
round cap ; some with a button cap, and some with a hat ; some 
in scholar's clothes, some in common clothes." 

These differences in public worship, which, by many, were con- 
sidered as indifferent matters, and by others were unduly magni- 
fied, seem to have constituted the chief peculiarity of the early 
Puritans. In regard to the queen's supremacy, the union of church 
and state, the necessity of supporting religion by law, and articles 
of theological belief, there was no disagreement. Most of the 
non-conformists were men of learning and piety, and among the 
ornaments of the church. 

The metropolitan bishop, at this time, was Parker, a great 
stickler for the forms of the church, and veiy intolerant in all his 
opinions. He and others of the bishops had been appointed as 
commissioners to investigate the causes of dissent, and to suspend 
all who refused to conform to the rubric of the church. Hence 
arose the famous Court of the Ecclesiastical Commission, so much 
abused during the reigns of James and Charles. 

Under the direction of Parker, great numbers were suspended 
from their livings for non-conformity, and sent to wander in a state 
of destitution. Among these were some of the most learned men 
in the church. They had no means of defence or livelihood, and 
resorted to the press in order to vindicate their opinions. For this 
they were even more harshly dealt with ; an order was issued 
from the Star Chamber, that no person should print a book against 
the queen's injunctions, upon the penalty of fines and imprison- 
ment ; and authority was given to church-wardens to search all 
suspected places where books might be concealed. Great multi- 
tudes suffered in consequence of these tyrannical laws. 

But the non-conformists were further molested. They were 
forbidden to assemble together to read the Scriptures and pray, 
but were required to attend regularly the churches of the Estab- 
lishment, on penalty of heavy fines for neglect. 

At length, worried, disgusted, and irritated, they resolved upon 
setting up the Genevan service, and upon withdrawing entirely 
from the Church of England. The separation, once made, (1566,) 



160 ARCHBISHOPS GEINDAL AND "WHITGIFT. [CHAP. XII. 

became wider and wider, and the Puritans soon after opposed the 
claims of bishops as a superior order of the clergy. They were 
opposed to the temporal dignities annexed to the episcopal office ; 
to the titles and office of archdeacons, deans, and chapters ; to the 
jurisdiction of spiritual courts ; to the promiscuous access of all 
persons to the communion ; to the liturgy ; to the prohibition in 
the public service of prayer by the clergyman himself ; to the use 
of godfathers and godmothers ; to the custom of confirmation ; to 
the cathedral worship and organs ; to pluralities and non-residency ; 
to the observance of Lent and of the holy days ; and to the ap- 
pointment of ministers by the crown, bishops, or lay patrons, instead 
of election by the people. 

The schism was now complete, and had grown out of such small 
differences as refusing to bow at the name of Jesus, and to use 
the cross in baptism. 

In our times, the Puritans would have been permitted to worship 
God in their own way, but they were not thus allowed in the time 
of Elizabeth. Religious toleration was not then understood or 
practised ; and it was the fault of the age, since the Puritans them- 
selves, when they obtained the power, persecuted with great 
severity the Quakers and the Catholics. But, during the whole 
reign of Elizabeth, especially the life of Archbishop Parker, they 
were in a minority, and suffered — as minorities ever have suffered 
— all the miseries which unreasonable majorities could inflict. 

Archbishop Grindal, who succeeded Parker in 1575, recom- 
mended milder measures to the queen ; but she had no charity 
for those who denied the supremacy of her royal conscience. 

Grindal was succeeded, in 1583, by Dr. Whitgift, the antagonist 
of the learned Dr. Cartwright, and he proved a ruler of the church 
according to her majesty's mind. He commenced a most violent 
crusade against the non-conformists, and was so harsh, cruel, and 
unreasonable, that Cecil — Lord Burleigh — was obliged to remon- 
strate, being much more enlightened than the prelate. " I have 
read over," said he, " your twenty-four articles, and I find them 
so curiously penned, that I think that the Spanish Inquisition used 
not so many questions to entrap the priests." Nevertheless, 
fines, imprisonment, and the gibbet continued to do their work, 
in the vain attempt to put down opinions, till within four or five 



CHAP. XII.] PERSECUTION UNDER JAMES. 161 

years of the queen's death, when there was a cessation of perse- 
cution. 

But the Scottish Solomon, as James was called, renewed the 
severity which Elizabeth found it wise to remit. Hitherto, the 
Puritans had been chiefly Presbyterians ; but now the Independents 
arose, who carried their views still further, even to wildness and 
radicalism. They were stricter Calvinists, and inclined to repub- 
lican views of civil government. Consequently, they were still 
more odious than were the Presbyterians to an arbitrary govern- 
ment. They were now persecuted for their doctrines of faith, 
as well as for their forms of worship. The Church of Eng- 
land retained the thirty-nine articles ; but many of her leading 
clergy sympathized with the views of Arminius, and among 
them was the primate himself. So strictly were Arminian doc- 
trines cherished, that no person under a dean was permitted to 
discourse on predestination, election, reprobation, efficacy, or uni- 
versality of God's grace. And the king himself would hear no 
doctrines preached, except those he had condemned at the synod 
of Dort. But this act was aimed against the Puritans, who, of 
all parties, were fond of preaching on what was called " the Five 
Points of Calvinism." But they paid dearly for their independ- 
ence. James absolutely detested them, regarded them as a sect 
insufferable in a well-governed commonwealth, and punished them 
with the greatest severity. Their theological doctrines, their 
notions of church government, and, above all, their spirit of demo- 
cratic liberty, were odious and repulsive. Archbishop Bancroft, 
who succeeded Whitgift in 1604, went beyond all his predecessors 
in bigotiy, but had not their commanding intellects. His measures 
were so injudicious, so vexatious, so annoying, so severe, and so 
cruel, that the Puritans became, if possible, still more estranged. 
With the popular discontents, and with the progress of persecution, 
their numbers increased, both in Scotland and England. With 
the increase of Puritanism was also a corresponding change in the 
Church of England, since ceremony and forms increased almost 
to a revival of Catholicism. And this reaction towards Rome, 
favored by the court, incensed still more the Puritans, and led to 
language unnecessarily violent and abusive on their side. Their 
controversial tracts were pervaded with a spirit of bitterness and 
14* 



162 PURITANS IN EXILE. [CHAP. XII. 

treason which, in the, opinion of James, fully justified the impris- 
onments, fines, and mutilations which his minister inflicted. 
The Puritans, in despair, fled to Holland, and from thence to New 
England, to estahlish, amid its barren hills and desolate forests, 
that worship which alone they thought would be acceptable to 
God. Persecution elevated them, and none can deny that they 
were characterized by moral virtues and a spirit of liberty which 
no people ever before or since exhibited. Almost their only fault 
was intolerance respecting the opinions and pleasures of many 
good people who did not join their ranks. 

James's death did not remit their sufferings ; but, by this time, 
they had so multiplied that they became a party too formidable to 
be crushed. The High Commission Court and the Star Chamber 
still filled the prisons and pillories with victims ; but every sentence 
of these courts fanned the flame of discontent, and hastened the 
catastrophe which was rapidly approaching. The volcano, over 
whose fearful brink the royal family and the haughty hierarchy 
were standing, was now sending forth those frightful noises which 
indicated approaching convulsions. 

During the yeaTs that Charles dispensed with the parliaments, 
when Laud was both minister and archbishop, the persecution 
reached its height, and also popular discontent. During this 
period, the greatest emigration was made to New England, and 
even Hampden and Cromwell contemplated joining their brethren 
in America. Arianism and Popery advanced with Puritanism, 
and all parties prepared for the approaching contest. The advo- 
cates of royal usurpation became more unreasonable, the friends 
of popular liberty became more violent. Those who had the 
power, exercised it without reflection. The history of the times 
is simply this — despotism striving to put Puritanism and liberty 
beneath its feet, and Puritanism aiming to subvert the crown. 

But the greatest commotions were in Scotland, where the people 
were generally Presbyterians ; and it was the zeal of Archbishop 
Laud in suppressing these, and attempting to change the religion 
of the land, which precipitated the ruin of Charles I. 

Ever since the time of Knox, Scotland had been the scene of 
violent religious animosities. In that country, the reformation, 
from the first, had been a popular movement. It was so impetu- 



CHAP. XII.] TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND. 163 

ous, and decided under the guidance of the uncompromising Knox, 
that even before the dethronement of Mary, it was complete. In 
the year 1592, through the influence of Andrew Melville, the 
Presbyterian government was fairly established, and King James 
is said to have thus expressed himself: "I praise God that I was 
born in the time of the light of the gospel, and in such a place as 
to be king of the purest kirk in the world." The Church of Scot- 
land, however, had severe struggles from the period of its institu- 
tion, 1560, to the year 1584, when the papal influence was finally 
destroyed by the expulsion of the earl of Arran from the councils 
of the young king. Nor did these struggles end even there. 
James, perceiving that Episcopacy was much more consonant with 
monarchy than Presbyterianism, attempted to remodel the Scottish 
church on the English basis, which attempt resulted in discontent 
and rebellion. James, however, succeeded in reducing to contempt 
the general assemblies of the Presbyterian church, and in confirm- 
ing Archbishop Spotswood in the chief administration of eccle- 
siastical affairs, which, it must be confessed, were regulated with 
great prudence and moderation. 

When Charles came to the throne, he complained of the laxity 
of the Scotch primate, and sent him a set of rules by which 
he was to regulate his conduct. Charles also added new dignities 
to his see, and ordained that he, as primate, should take prece- 
dence over all the temporal lords, which irritated the proud Scotch 
nobility. He moreover contemplated the recovery of tithes and 
church lands for the benefit of the Episcopal government, and the 
imposition of a liturgy on the Scotch nation, a great majority of 
whom were Presbyterians. This was the darling scheme of Laud, 
who believed that there could scarcely be salvation out of his 
church, and which church he strove to make as much like the 
Catholic as possible, and yet maintain independence of the pope. 
But nothing was absolutely done towards changing the religion of 
Scotland until Charles came down to Edinburgh (1633) to be 
crowned, when a liturgy was prepared for the Scotch nation, sub- 
jected to the revision of Laud, but which was not submitted to, 
or seen by, the General Assembly, or any convocation of ministers 
in Scotland. Nothing could be more ill timed or ill judged than 
this conflict with the religious prejudices of a people zealously 



164 TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII. 

attached to their own forms of worship. The clergy united with 
the aristocracy, and both with the people, in denouncing the con- 
duct of the king and his ministers as tyrannical and unjust. The 
canons, especially, which Laud had prepared, were, in the eyes 
of the Scotch, puerile and superstitious _; they could not conceive 
why a Protestant prelate should make so much account of the 
position of the font or of the communion table, turned into an 
altar. Indeed, his liturgy was not much other than an English 
translation of the Roman Missal, and excited the detestation of all 
classes. Yet it was resolved to introduce it into the churches, and 
the day was fixed for its introduction, which was Easter Sunday, 
1637. But such a ferment was produced, that the experiment was 
put off to Sunday, 23d of July. On that day, the archbishops and 
bishops, lords of session, and magistrates were all present, by com- 
mand, in the Church of St. Giles. But no sooner had the dean 
opened the service book, and begun to read out of it, than the 
people, who had assembled in great crowds, began to fill the 
church with uproar. The bishop of Edinburgh, who was to 
preach, stepped into the pulpit, and attempted to appease the 
tumultuous people. But this increased the tumult, when an old 
woman, seizing a stool, hurled it at the bishop's head. Sticks, 
stones, and dirt followed the stool, with loud cries of " Down with 
the priest of Baal ! " "A pape, a pape ! " " Antichrist ! " " Pull 
him down ! " This was the beginning of the insurrection, which 
spread from city to village, until all Scotland was in arms, and 
Episcopacy, as an established religion, was subverted. In Febru- 
ary, 1638, the covenant was drawn up in Edinburgh, and was sub- 
scribed to by all classes, in all parts of Scotland; and, in Novem- 
ber, the General Assembly met in Glasgow, the first that had been 
called for twenty years, and Presbyterianism was reestablished in 
the kingdom, if not legally, yet in reality. 

From the day on which the Convocation opened, until the 
conquest of the country by Cromwell, the Kirk reigned supreme, 
there being no power in the government, or in the country, able 
or disposed to resist or question its authority. This was the golden 
age of Presbyterianism, when the clergy enjoyed autocratic power 
— a sort of Druidical ascendency over the minds and consciences 
of the people, in affairs temporal as well as spiritual. 



CHAP. XII.] PECULIARITIES OF PURITANISM IN ENGLAND. 165 

Puritanism did not pervade the English, as it did the Scotch 
mind, although it soon obtained an ascendency. Most of the great 
political chieftains who controlled the House of Commons, and 
who clamored for the death of Strafford and Laud, were Puritans. 
But they were not all Presbyterians. In England, after the flight 
of the king from Whitehall, the Independents attracted notice, 
and eventually seized the reins of government. Cromwell was an 
Independent. 

The difference between these two sects was chiefly in their views 
about government, civil and ecclesiastical. Both Presbyterians 
and Independents were rigid Calvinists, practised a severe morality, 
were opposed to gay amusements, disliked organs and ceremonies, 
strictly observed the Sabbath, and attached great importance to 
the close observance of the Mosaic ritual. The Presbyterians were 
not behind the Episcopalians in hatred of sects and a free press. 
They had their model of worship, and declared it to be of divine 
origin. They looked upon schism as the parent of licentiousness, 
insisted on entire uniformity, maintained the divine right of the 
clergy to the management of ecclesiastical affairs, and claimed 
the sword of the magistrate to punish schismatics and heretics. 
They believed in the union of church and state, but would give 
the clergy the ascendency they possessed in the Middle Ages. 
They did not desire the entire prostration of royal authority, but 
only aimed to limit and curtail it. 

The Independents wished a total disruption of church and state, 
and disliked synods almost as much as they did bishops. They 
believed that every congregation was a distinct church, and had 
a right to elect the pastor. They preferred the greatest variety 
of sects to the ascendency of any one, by means of the civil sword. 
They rejected all spiritual courts, and claimed the right of each 
church to reject, punish, or receive members. In politics, they 
wished a total overthrow of the government — monarchy, aristoc- 
racy, and prelacy ; and were averse to any peace which did not 
secure complete toleration of opinions, and the complete subversion 
of the established order of things. 

Between the Presbyterians and the Independents, therefore, there 
could not be any lasting sympathy or alliance. They only united 
to crush the common foe ; and, when Charles was beheaded, and 



166 CONFLICTS AMONG THE PURITANS. [CHAP. XII. 

Cromwell installed iji power, they turned their arms against each 
other. 

The great religious, contest, after the rise of Cromwell, was not 
between the Puritans and the Episcopalians, but between the 
different sects of Puritans themselves. At first, the Independents 
harmonized with the Presbyterians. Their theological and ethical 
opinions were the same, and both cordially hated and despised the 
government of the Stuarts. But when the Presbyterians obtained 
the ascendency, the Independents were grieved and enraged to 
discover that religious toleration was stigmatized as the parent of 
all heresy and schism. While in power, the Presbyterians shackled 
the press, and their intolerance brought out John Milton's famous 
tract on the liberty of unlicensed printing — one of the most masterly 
arguments which the advocates of freedom have ever made. The 
idea that any dominant religious sect should be incorporated with 
the political power, was the fatal error of Presbyterianism, and 
raised up enemies against it, after the royal power was suppressed. 
Cromwell was persuaded that the cause of religious liberty would 
be lost unless Presbyterianism, as well as Episcopacy, was discon- 
nected with the state ; and hence one great reason of his assuming 
the dictatorship. And he granted a more extended toleration than 
had before been known in England, although it was not perfect. 
The Catholics and the Quakers were not partakers of the boon 
which he gave to his country ; so hard is it for men to learn the 
rights of others, when they have power in their own hands. 
. The Restoration was a victory over both the Independents and 
the general swarm of sectaries which an age of unparalleled 
religious excitement had produced. It is difficult to conceive of 
the intensity of the passions which inflamed all parties of religious 
disputants. But if the Puritan contest developed fanatical zeal, 
it also brought out the highest qualities of mind and heart which 
any age has witnessed. With all the faults and weaknesses of the 
Puritans, there never lived a better class of men, — men of more 
elevated piety, more enlarged views, or greater disinterestedness, 
patriotism, and moral worth. They made sacrifices which our age 
can scarcely appreciate, and had difficulties to contend with which 
were unparalleled in the history of reform. They made blunders 
which approximated to crimes, but they made them in their inex- 



CHAP. XII.] CHARACTER OF THE PURITANS. 167 

perience and zeal to promote the cause of religion and liberty. 
They were conscientious men — men who acted from the fear of 
God, and with a view to promote the highest welfare of future 
generations. They launched their bark boldly upon an unknown 
sea, and heroically endured its dangers and sufferings, with a view 
of conferring immortal blessings on their children and country. 
More prudent men would have avoided the perils of an unknown 
navigation ; but, by such men, a great experiment for humanity 
would not have been tried. It may have failed, but the world has 
learned immortal wisdom from the failure. But the Puritans were 
not mere adventurers or martyrs. They have done something of 
lasting benefit to mankind, and they have done this by the power 
of faith, and by loyalty to their consciences, perverted as they 
were in some respects. The Puritans were not agreeable com- 
panions to the idle, luxurious, or frivolous ; they were rigid even 
to austerity; their expressions degenerated into cant, and they 
were hostile to many innocent amusements. But these were pecu- 
liarities which furnished subjects of ridicule merely, and did not 
disgrace or degrade them. These were a small offset to their 
moral wisdom, their firm endurance, their elevation of sentiment, 
their love of liberty, and their fear of God. Such are the men 
whom Providence ordains to give impulse to society, and effect 
great and useful reforms. 



We now return to consider the changes which they attempted 
in government. The civil war, of which Cromwell was the hero, 
now claims our attention. 

The refusal of the governor of Hull to admit the king was vir- 
tually the declaration of war, for which both parties had vigorously 
prepared. 

The standard of the king was first raised in Nottingham, while 
the head-quarters of the parliamentarians were in London. The 
first action of any note was the battle of Edge Hill, (October 23, 
1642,) but was undecisive. Indeed, both parties hesitated to plunge 
into' desperate war, at least until, by skirmishings and military 
manoeuvres, they were better prepared for it. 

The forces of the belligerents, at this period, were nearly equal, 



168 JOHN HAMPDEN. [CHAP. XII. 

but the parliamentarians had the ablest leaders. It was the mis- 
fortune of the king to have no man of commanding talents, as his 
counsellor, after the arrest of Strafford. Hyde, afterwards lord 
chancellor, and Earl of Clarendon, was the ablest of the royalist 
party. Falkland and Culpeper were also eminent men ; but neither 
of them was the equal of Pym or Hampden. , 

The latter was doubtless the ablest man in England at this time, 
and the only one who could have saved it from the evils which 
afterwards afflicted it. On him the hopes and affections of the 
nation centred. He was great in council and great in debate. 
He was the acknowledged leader of the House of Commons. He 
was eloquent, honest, unwearied, sagacious, and prudent. " Never 
had a man inspired a nation with greater confidence : the more 
moderate had faith in his wisdom ; the more violent in his devoted 
patriotism ; the more honest in his uprightness ; the more intriguing 
in his talents." He spared neither his fortune nor his person, as 
soon as hostilities were inevitable. He subscribed two thousand 
pounds to the public cause, took a colonel's commission, and raised 
a regiment of infantry, so well known during the war for its green 
uniform, and the celebrated motto of its intrepid leader, — " Ves- 
tigia nulla retrorsum.'''' He possessed the talents of a great 
statesman and a great general, and all the united qualities requisite 
for the crisis in which he appeared — " the valor and energy of 
Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity 
and moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale, the 
ardent public spirit of Sydney. Others could conquer ; he alone 
could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers 
who turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye 
as his watched the Scottish army descending from the heights over 
Dunbar. But it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and 
Charles, had succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and factions, 
ambitious of ascendency, and burning for revenge ; it was when 
the vices and ignorance, which the old tyranny had generated, 
threatened the new freedom with destruction, that England missed 
that sobriety, that self-command, that perfect soundness of judg- 
ment, that perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of 
revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Wash- 
ington alone." * 

* Macaulay. 



CHAP. XII.] OLIVER CROMWELL. 169 

This great man was removed by Providence from the scene of 
violence and faction at an early period of the contest. He was 
mortally wounded in one of those skirmishes in which the detach- 
ments of both armies had thus far engaged, and which made 
the campaigns of 1642-3 so undecided, so tedious, and so irri- 
tating — campaigns in which the generals of both armies reaped 
no laurels, and which created the necessity for a greater genius 
than had thus far appeared. That genius was Oliver Cromwell. 
At the battle of Edge Hill he was only captain of a troop of horse ; 
and at the death of his cousin Hampden, he was only colonel. 
He was indeed a member of the Long Parliament, as was Hamp- 
den, and had secured the attention of the members in spite of his 
slovenly appearance and his incoherent, though earnest speeches. 
Under his rough and clownish exterior, his talents were not per- 
ceived, except by two or three penetrating intellects ; but they 
were shortly to appear, and to be developed, not in the House of 
Commons, but on the field of battle. The rise of Oliver Crom- 
well can scarcely be dated until the death of John Hampden ; nor 
were the eyes of the nation fixed on him, as their deliverer, until 
some time after. The Earl of Essex was still the commander of 
the forces, while the Earl of Bedford, Lord Manchester, Lord 
Fairfax, Skippen, Sir William Waller, Leslie, and others held high 
posts. Cromwell was still a subordinate ; but genius breaks through 
all obstacles, and overleaps all boundaries. The time had not yet 
come for the exercise of his great military talents. The period of 
negotiation had not fully passed, and the king, at his head-quarters 
at Oxford, " that seat of pure, unspotted loyalty," still hoped to 
amuse the parliament, gain time, and finally overwhelm its forces. 
Prince Rupert — brave, ardent, reckless, unprincipled — still ravaged 
the country without reaping any permanent advantage. The par- 
liament was perplexed and the people were disappointed. On the 
whole, the king's forces were in the ascendant, and were augment- 
ing; while plots and insurrections were constantly revealing to 
the parliamentarians the dangers which threatened them. Had 
not an able leader, at this crisis, appeared among the insurgents, 
or had an able general been given to Charles, it is probable that 
the king would have secured his ends ; for popular, enthusiasm, 
15 



170 THE KING AT OXFORD. [CHAP. XII. 

without the organization which a master spirit alone can form, 
soon burns itself out. 

The state of the contending parties, from the battle of Edge 
Hill, for nearly two years, was very singular and very complicated. 
The king remained at Oxford, distracted by opposing cpunsels, 
and perplexed by various difficulties. The head-quarters of his 
enemies, at London, were no less the seat of intrigues and party 
animosities. The Presbyterians were the most powerful, and were 
nearly as distrustful of the Independents as they were of the king, 
and feared a victory over the king nearly as much as they did a 
defeat by him, and the dissensions among the various sects and 
leaders were no secret in the royalist camp, and doubtless encour- 
aged Charles in his endless intrigues and dissimulations. But he 
was not equal to decisive measures, and without them, in revolution- 
ary times, any party must be ruined. While he was meditating 
and scheming, he heard the news of an alliance between Scotland 
and the parliament, in which the Presbyterian interest was in the 
ascendency. This was the first great blow he received since the 
commencement of the war, and the united forces of his enemies 
now resolved upon more vigorous measures. 

At the opening of the campaign, the parliament had five armies 
— that of the Scots, of twenty-one thousand ; that of Essex, ten 
thousand five hundred ; that of Waller, five thousand one hundred ; 
that of Manchester, fourteen thousand ; and that of Fairfax, five 
thousand five hundred — in all, about fifty-six thousand men, of 
whom the committee of the two kingdoms had the entire disposal. 
In May, Essex and Waller invested Oxford, while Fairfax, Manches- 
ter, and the Scots met under the walls of York. Thus these two 
great royalist cities were attacked at once by all the forces of par- 
liament. Charles, invested by a stronger force, and being deprived 
of the assistance of the princes, Rupert and Maurice, his nephews, 
who were absent on their marauding expeditions, ecaped from Ox- 
ford, and proceeded towards Exeter. In the mean time, he ordered 
Prince Rupert to advance to the relief of York, which was defended 
by the marquis of Newcastle. The united royalist army now 
amounted to twenty-six thousand men, with a numerous and well- 
appointed cavalry ; and this great force obliged the armies of the 
parliament to raise the siege of York. Had Rupert been con- 



CHAP. XII.] CROMWELL AFTER THE BATTLE. 171 

tented with this success, and intrenched himself in the strongest 
city of the north of England, he and Newcastle might have main- 
tained their ground ; but Rupert, against the advice of Newcastle, 
resolved on an engagement with the parliamentary generals, who 
had retreated to Marston Moor, on the banks of the Ouse, five miles 
from the city. 

The next day after the relief of York was fought the famous 
battle of Marston Moor, (July 2, 1644,) the bloodiest in the war, 
which resulted in the entire discomfiture of the royalist forces, and 
the ruin of the royal interests at the north. York was captured 
in a few days. Rupert retreated to Lancashire to recruit his 
army, and Newcastle, disgusted with Rupert, and with the turn 
affairs had taken, withdrew beyond seas. The Scots soon stormed 
the town of Newcastle, and the whole north of England fell into 
the hands of the victors. 

This great battle was decided by the ability of Cromwell, now 
lieutenant-general in the army of the parliament. He had distin- 
guished himself in all subordinate stations, in the field of battle, 
in raising forces, and in councils of war, for which he had been 
promoted to serve as second under the Earl of Manchester. But 
his remarkable military genius was not apparent to the parliament 
until the battle of Marston Moor, and on him the eyes of the nation 
now began to be centred. He was now forty-five years of age, 
in the vigor of his manhood, burning with religious enthusiasm, 
and eager to deliver his country from the tyranny of Charles I., 
and of all kings. He was an Independent and a radical, opposed 
to the Episcopalians, to the Presbyterians, to the Scots, to all mod- 
erate men, to all moderate measures, to all jurisdiction in mat- 
ters of religion, and to all authority in political affairs, which did 
not directly emanate from the people, who were called upon to 
regulate themselves by their individual reason. He was the idol 
of the Independent party, which now began to gain the ascendency 
in that stormy crisis. For three years, the Presbyterians had 
been in the ascendant, but had not realized the hopes or expecta- 
tions of the enthusiastic advocates of freedom. By turns imperi- 
ous and wavering, fanatical and moderate, they sought to curtail 
and humble the king, not to ruin him ; to depress Episcopacy, but 
to establish another religion by the sword of the magistrate. Their 



172 ENTHUSIASM OF THE INDEPENDENTS. [CHAP. XII. 

leaders were timid, insincere, and disunited ; few among them 
had definite views respecting the future government of the realm ; 
and they gradually lost the confidence of the nation. But the 
Independents reposed fearlessly on the greatness and grandeur of 
their abstract principles, and pronounced, without a scruple, those 
potent words which kindled a popular enthusiasm — equality of 
rights, the just distribution of properly, and the removal of all 
abuses. Above all, they were enthusiasts in religion, as well as 
in liberty, and devoutly attached to the doctrines of Calvin. They 
abominated all pleasures and pursuits which diverted their minds 
from the contemplation Of God, or the reality of a future state. 
Cromwell himself lived in the ecstasy of religious excitement. 
His language was the language of the Bible, and its solemn truths 
were not dogmas, but convictions to his ardent mind. In the ardor 
of his zeal and the frenzy of his hopes, he fondly fancied that the 
people of England were to rise in simultaneous confederation, 
shake off all the old shackles of priests and kings, and be governed 
in all their actions, by the principles of the Bible. A sort of 
Jewish theocracy was to be restored on earth, and he was to be 
the organ of the divine will, as was Joshua of old, when he led 
the Israelites against the pagan inhabitants of the promised land. 
Up to this time, no inconsistencies disgraced him. His prayers 
and his exhortations were in accordance with his actions, and the 
most scrutinizing malignity could attribute nothing to him but sin- 
cerity and ardor in the cause which he had so warmly espoused. 
As magistrate, as member of parliament, as farmer, or as general, 
he slighted no religious duties, and was devoted to the apparent 
interests of England. Such a man, so fervent, enthusiastic, honest, 
patriotic, and able, of course was pointed out as a future leader, 
especially when his great military talents were observed at Marston 
Moor. -From the memorable 2d of July, he became the most 
marked and influential man in England. Hampden had offered 
up his life as a martyr, and Pym, the great lawyer and statesman, 
had died from exhaustion. Essex had won no victory commensu- 
rate with the public expectations, and Waller lost his army by 
desertions and indecisive measures. Both Essex and Manchester, 
with their large estates, their aristocratic connections, and their 
Presbyterian sympathies, were afraid of treating the king too well. 



CHAP. XII.] BATTLE OF NASEBY. 173 

The battle of Newbury, which shortly after was gained by the par- 
liamentarians, was without decisive results, in consequence of the 
indecision of Manchester. The parliament and the nation looked 
for another leader, who would pursue his advantages, and adopt 
more vigorous measures. At this point, the Presbyterians would 
have made peace with the king, who still continued his insincere 
negotiations ; but it was too late. The Independents had gained 
the ascendency, and their voice was for war — no more dallying, 
no more treaties, no more half measures, but uncompromising 
war. It Was plain that either the king or the Independents must 
be the absolute rulers of England. 

Then was passed (April 3, 1645) the famous Self-Denying Ordi- 
nance, by which all members of parliament were excluded from 
command in the army, an act designed to get rid of Essex and 
Manchester, and prepare the way for the elevation of Cromwell. 
Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed to the supreme command, and 
Cromwell was despatched into the inland counties to raise recruits. 
But it was soon obvious that the army could do nothing without 
him, although it was remodelled and reenforced ; and even Fairfax 
and his officers petitioned parliament that Cromwell might be ap- 
pointed lieutenant-general again, and commander-in-chief of the 
horse ; which request was granted, and Cromwell rejoined the 
army, of which he was its hope and idol. 

He joined it in time to win the most decisive battle of the war, 
the battle of Naseby, June 14, 1645. The forces of both armies 
were nearly balanced, and the royalists were commanded by the 
king in person, assisted by his ablest generals. But the rout of the 
king's forces was complete, his fortunes were prostrated, and he 
was driven, with the remnants of his army, from one part of the 
kingdom to the other, while the victorious parliamentarians were 
filled with exultation and joy. Cromwell, however, was modest 
and composed, and ascribed the victory to the God of battles, 
whose servant, he fancied, he preeminently was. 

The parliamentary army continued its successes. Montrose 
gained the battle of Alvord ; Bridgewater surrendered to Fairfax ; 
Glasgow and Edinburgh surrendered to Montrose ; Prince Rupert 
was driven from Bristol, and, as the king thought, most disgrace- 
fully ; which misfortune gave new joy to the parliament, and caused 
15* 



174 SUCCESS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ARMY. [CHAP. XII. 

new thanksgivings from Cromwell, who gained the victory. From 
Bristol, the army turned southward, and encountered what royalist 
force there was in that quarter, stormed Bridgewater, drove the 
royalist generals into Cornwall, took Winchester, battered down 
Basing House, rich in provisions, ammunition, and silver plate, and 
completely prostrated all the hopes of the king in the south of 
England. Charles fled from Oxford, secretly, to join the Scottish 
army. 

By the 24th of June, 1646, all the garrisons of England and 
Wales, except those in the north, were in the hands of the parlia- 
ment. In July, the parliament sent their final propositions to the 
king at Newcastle, which were extremely humiliating, and which 
he rejected. Negotiations were then entered into between the 
parliament and the Scots, which were long protracted, but which 
finally ended in an agreement, by the Scots, to surrender the king 
to the parliament, for the payment of their dues. They accord- 
ingly marched home with an instalment of two hundred thousand 
pounds, and the king was given up, not to the Independents, but 
to the Commissioners of parliament, in which body the Presbyterian 
interest predominated. 

At this juncture, (January, 1647,) Cromwell, rather than the king, 
was in danger of losing his head. The Presbyterians, who did not 
wish to abolish royalty v but establish uniformity with their mode of 
worship, began to be extremely jealous of the Independents, who 
were bent on more complete toleration of opinions, and who aimed 
at a total overthrow of many of the old institutions of the country. 
So soon as the king was humbled, and in their hands, it was pro- 
posed to disband the army which had gloriously finished the war, 
and which was chiefly composed of the Independents, and to create 
a new one on a Presbyterian model. The excuse was, that the 
contest was ended, while, indeed, the royalists were rather dis- 
persed and humbled, than subdued. It was voted that, in the 
reduced army, no one should have, except Fairfax, a higher rank 
than colonel, a measure aimed directly at Cromwell, now both 
feared and distrusted by the Presbyterians. But the army refused 
to be disbanded without payment of its arrears, and, moreover, 
marched upon London, in spite of the vote of the parliament that 
it should not come within twenty-five miles. Several irritating 



CHAP. XII.] SEIZURE OF THE KING. 17.5 

resolutions were passed by the parliament, which only had the 
effect of uniting the army more strongly together, in resistance 
against parliament, as well as against the king. The Lords and 
Commons then voted that the king should be brought nearer Lon- 
don, and new negotiations opened with him, which were prevented 
from being carried into effect by the seizure of the king at Holmby 
House, by Cornet Joyce, with a strong party of horse belonging to 
Walley's regiment, probably at the instigation of Cromwell and 
Ireton. His majesty was now in the hands of the army, his 
worst enemy, and, though treated with respect and deference, was 
really guarded closely, and watched by the Independent generals. 
The same day, Cromwell left London in haste, and joined the 
army, knowing full well that he was in imminent danger of arrest. 
He was cordially received, and forthwith the army resolved not to 
disband until all the national grievances were redressed, thus setting 
itself up virtually against all the constituted authorities. Fairfax, 
Cromwell, Ireton, and Hammond, with other high officers, then 
waited on the king, and protested that they had nothing to do with 
the seizure of his person, and even invited him to return to Holmby 
House. But the king never liked the Presbyterians, and was 
willing to remain with the army instead, especially since he was 
permitted to have Episcopal chaplains, and to see whomsoever he 
pleased. 

The generals of the army were not content with- the seizure of 
his majesty's person, but now caused eleven of the most obnoxious 
of the Presbyterian leaders of parliament to be accused, upon 
which they hid themselves, while the army advanced towards 
London. The parliament, at first, made a show of resistance, but 
soon abandoned its course, and now voted that the army should 
be treated with more respect and care. It was evident now to all 
persons where the seat of power rested. 

In the mean time, the king was removed from Newmarket to 
Kingston, from Hatfield to Woburn Abbey, and thence to Windsor 
Castle, which was the scene of new intrigues and negotiations on 
his part, and on the part of parliament, and even on the part of 
Cromwell. This was the last chance the king had. Had he cor- 
dially sided now with either the Presbyterians or the Independents, 
his subsequent misfortunes might have been averted. But he 



176 TRIUMPH OF THE INDEPENDENTS. [CHAP. XII. 

hated both parties, and trifled with both, and hoped to conquer 
both. He was unable to see the crisis of his affairs, Or to adapt 
himself to it. He was incapable of fair dealing, with any party. 
His duplicity and dissimulation were fully made known to Crom- 
well and Ireton by a letter of the king to his wife, which they inter- 
cepted ; and they made up their minds to more decided courses. 
The king was more closely guarded ; the army marched to the 
immediate vicinity of London ; a committee of safety was named, 
and parliament was intimidated into the passing of a resolution, by 
which the city of London and the Tower were intrusted to Fairfax 
and Cromwell. The Presbyterian party was forever depressed, 
its leading members fled to France, and the army had every thing 
after its own way. Parliament still was ostensibly the supreme 
power in the land ; but it was entirely controlled by the Independ- 
ent leaders and generals. 

The victorious Independents then made their celebrated pro- 
posals to the king, as the Presbyterians had done before them ; 
only the conditions which the former imposed were more liberal, 
and would have granted to the king powers almost as great as are 
now exercised by the sovereign. But he would not accept them, 
and continued to play his game of kingcraft. 

Shortly after, the king contrived to escape from Windsor to the 
Isle of Wight, with the connivance of Cromwell. At Carisbrook 
Castle, where he quartered himself, he was more closely guarded 
than before. Seeing this, he renewed his negotiations with the 
Scots, and attempted to escape. But escape was impossible. He 
was now in the hands of men who aimed at his life. A strong party 
in the army, called the Levellers, openly advocated his execu- 
tion, and the establishment of a republic ; and parliament itself 
resolved to have no further treaty with ,him. His only hope was 
now from the Scots, and they prepared to rescue him. 

Although the government of the country was now virtually in 
the hands of the Independents and of the army, the state of affairs 
was extremely critical, and none other than Cromwell could have 
extricated the dominant party from the difficulties. In one quarter 
was an imprisoned and intriguing king in league with the Scots, 
while the royalist party was waiting for the first reverse to rise tip 
again with new strength in various parts of the land. Indeed, 



CHAP. XII.] CROMWELL INVADES SCOTLAND. 177 

there were several insurrections, which required all the vigor 
of Cromwell to suppress. The city of London, which held the 
purse-strings, was at heart Presbyterian, and was extremely dissatis- 
fied with the course affairs were taking. Then, again, there was 
a large, headstrong, levelling, mutineer party in the army, which 
clamored for violent courses, which at that time would have ruined 
every thing. Finally, the. Scotch parliament had voted to raise a 
force of forty thousand men, to invade England and rescue the 
king. Cromwell, before he could settle the peace of the countiy, 
must overcome all these difficulties. Who, but he, could have 
triumphed over so many obstacles, and such apparent anarchy ? 

The first thing Cromwell did was to restore order in England ; 
and therefore he obtained leave to march against the rebels, who 
had arisen in various parts of the country. Scarcely were these sub- 
dued, before he heard of the advance of the Scottish army, under 
the Duke of Hamilton. A second civil war now commenced, and 
all parties witnessed the result with fearful anxiety. 

The army of Hamilton was not as large as he had hoped. Still 
he had fifteen thousand men, and crossed the borders, while Crom- 
well was besieging Pembroke, in a distant part of the kingdom. 
But Pembroke soon surrendered ; and Cromwell advanced, by 
rapid marches, against the Scottish army, more than twice as 
large as his own. The hostile forces met in Lancashire. Hamil- 
ton was successively defeated at Preston, Wigam, and Warrington. 
Hamilton was taken prisoner at Uttoxeter, August 25, 1648, and 
his invading army was completely annihilated. 

Cromwell then resolved to invade, in his turn, Scotland itself, 
and, by a series of military actions, to give to the army a still 
greater ascendency. He was welcomed at Edinburgh by the Duke 
of Argyle, the head of an opposing faction, and was styled " the 
Preserver of Scotland." That country was indeed rent with most 
unhappy divisions, which Lieutenant-General Cromwell remedied 
in the best way he could ; and then he rapidly retraced his steps, 
to compose greater difficulties at home. In his absence, the 
Presbyterians had rallied, and were again negotiating with the 
king on the Isle of Wight, while Cromwell was openly denounced 
in the House of Lords as ambitious, treacherous, and perfidious. 
Fairfax, his superior in command, but inferior in influence, was 



178 SEIZURE OE THE KING A SECOND TIME. [CHAP. XII. 

subduing the rebel royalists, who made a firm resistance at Col- 
chester, and all the various parties were sending their remonstrances 
to parliament. 

Among these was a remarkable one from the regiments of 
Ireton, Ingoldsby, Fleetwood, Whalley, and Overton, which im- 
puted to parliament the neglect of the affairs of the realm, called 
upon it to proclaim the sovereignty of the people and the election 
of a supreme magistrate, and threatened to take matters into their 
own hands. This was in November, 1646 ; but, long before this, 
a republican government was contemplated, although the leaders 
of the army had not joined in with the hue and cry which the 
fanatical Levellers had made. 

In the midst of the storm which the petition from the army had 
raised, the news arrived that the king had been seized a second 
time, and had been carried a prisoner to Hurst Castle, on the 
coast opposite the island, where he was closely confined by com- 
mand of the army. Parliament was justly indignant, and the 
debate relative to peace was resumed with redoubled earnestness. 
It is probable that, at this crisis, so irritated was parliament against 
the army, peace would have been made with the king, and the 
Independent party suppressed, had not most decisive measures 
been taken by the army. A rupture between the parliament 
and the army was inevitable. But Cromwell and the army 
chiefs had resolved upon their courses. The mighty stream of 
revolution could no longer be checked. Twenty thousand men 
had vowed that parliament should be purged. On the morning of 
December 6, Colonel Pride and Colonel Rich, with troops, sur- 
rounded the House of Commons ; and, as the members were going 
into the house, the most obnoxious were seized and sent to prison, 
among whom were Primrose, who had lost his ears in his contest 
against the crown, Waller, Harley, Walker, and various other 
men, who had distinguished themselves as advocates of constitu- 
tional liberty. None now remained in the House of Commons but 
some forty Independents, who were the tools of the army, and 
who voted to Cromwell their hearty thanks. " The minority had 
now become a majority," — which is not unusual in revolutionary 
times, — and proceeded to the work, in good earnest, which it had 
long contemplated. 



CHAP. XII.] TRIAL OF THE KING. 179 

This was the trial of the king, whose apartments at Whitehall 
were now occupied by his victorious general, and whose treasures 
were now lavished on his triumphant soldiers. 

On the 17th of December, 1648, in the middle of the night, the 
drawbridge of the Castle of Hurst was lowered, and a troop of 
horse entered the yard. Two days after, the king was removed to 
Windsor. On the 23d, the Commons voted that he should be 
brought to trial. On the 20th of January, Charles Stuart, King of 
England, was brought before the members of the House of Com- 
mons, in Westminster Hall, and placed at the bar, to be tried by 
this self-constituted body for his life. In the indictment, he was 
charged with being a tyrant, traitor, and murderer. To such an 
indictment, and before such a body, the dignified but unfortunate 
successor of William the Conqueror demurred. He refused to 
acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. But the solemn mock- 
ery of the trial proceeded nevertheless, and on the 27th, sentence 
of death was pronounced upon the prisoner — that prisoner the 
King of England, a few years before the absolute ruler of the 
state. On January 30, the bloody sentence was executed, and 
the soul of the murdered king ascended to that God who pardons 
those who put their trust in him, in spite of all their mistakes, 
errors, and delusions. The career of Charles I. is the most melan- 
choly in English history. That he was tyrannical, that he disre- 
garded the laws by which he swore to rule, that he was narrow 
and bigoted, that he was deceitful in his promises, that he was 
bent on overturning the liberties of England, and did not compre- 
hend the wants and circumstances of his times, can scarcely be 
questioned. But that he was sincere in his religion, upright in his 
private life, of respectable talents, and good intentions, must also 
be admitted. His execution, or rather his martyrdom, made a 
deep and melancholy impression in all Christian countries, and 
was the great blunder which the republicans made — a blunder 
which Hampden would have avoided. His death, however, re- 
moved from England a most dangerous intriguer, and, for a while, 
cemented the power of Cromwell and his party, who now had 
undisputed ascendency in the government of the realm. Charles's 
exactions and tyranny provoked the resistance of parliament, and 
the indignation of the people, then intensely excited in discussing 



180 TRIAL OF THE KING. [CHAP. XII. 

the abstract principles of civil and religious liberty. The resist- 
ance of parliament cheated the necessity of an army, and the 
indignation of the people filled it with enthusiasts. The army, 
flushed with success, forgot its relations and duties, and usurped 
the government it had destroyed ; and a military dictatorship, 
the almost inevitable result of revolution, though under the name 
of a republic, succeeded to the despotism of the Stuart kings. 
This republic, therefore, next claims attention. 



References. — The standard Histories of England. Guizot's History 
of the English Revolution. Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. Eors- 
ter's Life of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth. Neal's History of the 
Puritans. Macaulay's Essays. Lives of Bacon, Raleigh, Strafford, 
Laud, Hampden, and Cromwell. These works furnish all the common 
information. Few American students have the opportunity to investi- 
gate Thurlow's State Papers, or Rushworth, Whitelocke, Dugdale, or 
Mrs. Hutchinson. 



CHAP. XIII.] THE PROTECTORATE. 181 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PROTECTORATE OF OLIVER CROMWELL. 

On the day of the king's execution, January 30, 1649, the 
House of Commons — being but the shadow of a House of Com- 
mons, yet ostensibly the supreme authority in England — passed 
an act prohibiting the proclamation of the Prince of Wales, or any 
other person, to be king of England. On the 6th of February, 
the House of Peers was decreed useless and dangerous, and was 
also dispensed with. On the next day, royalty was formally 
abolished. The supreme executive power was vested in a council 
of state of forty members, the president of which was Bradshaw, 
the relative and friend of Milton, who employed his immortal genius 
in advocating the new government. The army remained under the 
command of Fairfax and Cromwell ; the navy was controlled by 
a board of admiralty, headed by Sir Harry Vane. A greater tolera- 
tion of religion was proclaimed than had ever been known before, 
much to the annoyance of the Presbyterians, who were additionally 
vexed that the state was separated entirely from the church. 

The Independents pursued their victory with considerable mod- 
eration, and only Duke Hamilton, and Lords Holland and Capel, 
were executed for treason, while a few others were shut up in the 
Tower. Never was so mighty a revolution accomplished with so 
little bloodshed. But it required all the wisdom and vigor of Fair- 
fax and Cromwell to repress the ultra radical spirit which had 
crept into several detachments of the army, and to baffle the 
movements which the Scots were making in favor of Charles 
Stuart, who had already been proclaimed king by the parliament 
of Scotland, and in Ireland by the Marquis of Ormond. 

The insurrection in Ireland first required the notice of the new 
English government. Cromwell accepted the conduct of the war, 
and the office of lord lieutenant. Dublin and Derry were the only 
places which held out for the parliament. All other parts of the 
country were in a state of insurrection. On the 15th of August, 
16 



182 STORMING OF DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD. [CHAP. XIII. 

Cromwell and his son-in-law, Ireton, landed near Dublin with an 
army of six thousand foot and three thousand horse only ; but it 
was an army of Ironsides and Titans. In six months, the com- 
plete reconquest of the country was effected. The policy of the 
conqueror was severe and questionable ; but it was successful. 
In the hope of bringing the war to a speedy termination, Cromwell 
proceeded in such a way as to bring terror to his name, and curses 
on his memory. Drogheda and Wexford were not only taken by 
storm, but nearly the whole garrison, of more than five thousand 
men, were barbarously put to the sword. The Irish quailed before 
such a victor, and town after town hastened to make peace. 
Cromwell's excuse for his undeniable cruelties was, the necessity 
of the case, of which we may reasonably suppose him to be a 
judge. Scotland was in array, and English affairs, scarcely set- 
tled, demanded his presence in London. An imperfect conquest, 
on the principles of Rousseau's philanthropy, did not suit the taste 
or the notions of Cromwell. If he had consumed a few more 
months than he actually employed, either in treaty-making with a 
deceitful though oppressed people, or in battles on the principles 
of the military science then in vogue, the cause of Independency 
would have been lost ; and that cause, associated with that of 
liberty, in the eyes of Cromwell, was of more value than the whole 
Irish nation, or any other nation. Cromwell was a devotee to a 
cause. Principles, with him, were every thing; men were nothing 
in comparison. To advance the principles for which he fought, 
he scrupled to use no means or instruments. In this he may have 
erred. But this policy was the secret of his success. We cannot 
justify his cruelties in war, because it is hard to justify the war 
itself. But if we acknowledge its necessity, we should remember 
that such a master of war as was Cromwell knew his circum- 
stances better than we do or can know. To his immortal glory it 
can be said that he never inflicted cruelty when he deemed it un- 
necessary ; that he never fought for the love of fighting ; and that 
he stopped fighting when the cause for which he fought was won. 
And this is more than can be said of most conquerors, even of 
those imbued with sentimental horror of bloodshed. Our world is 
full of cant. Cromwell's language sometimes sounds like it, espe- 
cially when he speaks of the " hand of the Lord " in " these mighty 
changes," who " breaketh the enemies of his church in pieces.'* 



CHAP. XIII.] BATTLE OF WORCESTER. 183 

When the conquest of Ireland was completed, Cromwell has- 
tened to London to receive the thanks of parliament and the accla- 
mations of the people ; and then he hurried to Scotland to do battle 
with the Scots, who had made a treaty with the king, and were 
resolved to establish Presbyterianism and royalty. Cromwell now 
superseded Fairfax, and was created captain-general of the forces 
of the commonwealth. Cromwell passed the borders, reached Edin- 
burgh without molestation, and then advanced on the Scotch army 
of twenty-seven thousand men, under Lesley, at Dunbar, where 
was fought a most desperate battle, but which Cromwell gained with 
marvellous intrepidity and skill. Three thousand men were killed, 
and ten thousand taken prisoners, and the hopes of the Scots 
blasted. The lord-general made a halt, and the whole army sang 
the one hundred and seventeenth psalm, and then advanced upon 
the capital, which opened its gates. Glasgow followed the exam- 
ple ; the whole south of Scotland submitted ; while the king fled 
towards the Highlands, but soon rallied, and even took the bold 
resolution of marching into England, while Cromwell was besieg- 
ing Perth. Charles reached Worcester before he was overtaken, 
established himself with sixteen thousand men, but was attacked 
by Cromwell, was defeated, and with difficulty fled. He reached 
France, however, and quietly rested until he was brought back by 
General Monk. 

With the battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, which Crom- 
well called his " crowning mercy," ended his military life. From 
that day to the time when he became protector, the most noticeable 
point in his history is his conduct towards the parliament. And 
this conduct is the most objectionable part of his life and char- 
acter ; for in this he violated the very principles he originally pro- 
fessed, and committed the same usurpations which he condemned 
in Charles I. Here he was not true to himself or his cause. 
Here he laid himself open to the censure of all posterity ; and 
although he had great excuses, and his course has many pallia- 
tions, still it would seem a mockery of all moral distinctions not to 
condemn in him what we would condemn in another, or what 
Cromwell himself condemned in the murdered king. It is true he 
did not, at once, turn usurper, not until circumstances seemed to 
warrant the usurpation — the utter impossibility of governing Eng- 



184 POLICY OF CROMWELL. [CHAP. XIII. 

land, except by exercising the rights and privileges of an absolute 
monarch. On the principles of expediency, he has been vindicated, 
and will be vindicated, so long as his cause is advocated by parti- 
san historians, or expediency itself is advocated as a rule of life. 

After the battle of Worcester, Cromwell lost, in a measure, his 
democratic sympathies, and naturally, in view of the great excesses 
of the party with which he had been identified. That he desired 
the public good we cannot reasonably doubt ; and he adapted him- 
self to those circumstances which seemed to advance it, and which 
a spirit of wild democratic license assuredly did not. So far as 
it contributed to overturn the throne of the Stuarts, and the whole 
system of public abuses, civil and ecclesiastical, Cromwell favored 
it. But no further. When it seemed subversive of law and order, 
the grand ends of all civil governments, then he opposed it. 
And in this he showed that he was much more conservative in 
his spirit than has often been supposed; and, in this conserva- 
tism he resembled Luther and other great reformers, who were 
not unreflecting incendiaries, as is sometimes thought — men who 
destroy, but do not reconstruct. Luther, at heart, was a conserva- 
tive, and never sought a change to which he was not led by strong 
inward tempests — forced to make it by the voice of his conscience, 
which he ever obeyed, and loyalty to which so remarkably char- 
acterized the early reformers, and no class of men more than 
the Puritans. Cromwell abhorred the government of Charles, 
because it was not a government which respected justice, and 
which set at defiance the higher laws of God. It was not because 
Charles violated the constitution, it was because he violated truth 
and equity, and the nation's good, that he opposed him. Cromwell 
usurped his prerogatives, and violated the English constitution ; but 
he did not transgress those great primal principles of truth, for 
which constitutions are made. He looked beyond constitutions to 
abstract laws of justice ; and it never can be laid to his charge 
that he slighted these, or proved a weak or wicked ruler. He 
quarrelled with parliament, because the parliament wished to per- 
petuate its existence unlawfully and meanly, and was moreover 
unwilling and unable to cope with many difficulties which con- 
stantly arose. It may be supposed that Cromwell may thus have 
thought : " I will not support the parliament, for it will not main- 



CHAP. XIII.] THE KUMP PARLIAMENT. 185 

tain law ; it will not legislate wisely or beneficently ; it seeks its 
own, not the nation's good. And therefore I take away its exist- 
ence, and ride myself; for I have the fear of God before my 
eyes, and am determined to rule by his laws, and to advance his 
glory." Deluded he was ; blinded by ambition he may have been ; 
but he sought to elevate his country ; and his efforts in her behalf 
are appreciated and praised by the very men who are most severe 
on his undoubted usurpation. 

Shortly after the Long Parliament was purged, at the instigation 
of Cromwell, and had become the Rump Parliament, as it was 
derisively called, it appointed a committee to take into considera- 
tion the time when their powers should cease. But the battle of 
Worcester was fought before any thing was done, except to deter- 
mine that future parliaments should consist of four hundred mem- 
bers, and that the existing members should be returned, in the 
next parliament, for the places they then represented. At length, 
in December, 1651, it was decided, through the urgent entreaties 
of Cromwell, but only by a small majority, that the present parlia- 
ment should cease in November, 1654. Thus it was obvious to 
Cromwell that the parliament, reduced as it was, and composed of 
Independents, was jealous of him, and also was aiming to per- 
petuate its own existence, against all the principles of a representa- 
tive government. Such are men, so greedy of power themselves, 
so censorious in regard to the violation of justice by others, so 
blind to the violation of justice by themselves. Cromwell was not 
the man to permit the usurpation of power by a body of forty or 
sixty Independents, however willing he was to assume it himself. 
Beside, the Rump Parliament was inefficient, and did not consult 
the interests of the country. There was general complaint. But 
none complained more bitterly than Cromwell himself. Meeting 
Whitelock, who then held the great seal, he said that the " army 
was beginning to have a strange distaste against them ; that their 
pride, and ambition, and self-seeking ; their engrossing all places 
of honor and profit to themselves and their friends ; their daily 
breaking into new and violent parties ; their delays of business, 
and design to perpetuate themselves, and continue the power in 
their own hands ; their meddling in private matters between party 
and party ; their injustice and partiality ; the scandalous lives of 
16* 



186 DISPERSION OF THE PARLIAMENT. [CHAP. XIII. 

some of them, do g*ive too much ground for people to open their 
mouths against them ; and unless there be some power to check 
them, it will be impossible to prevent our ruin." These things 
Whitelock admitted, but did not see how they could be removed, 
since both he and Cromwell held their commissions from this same 
parliament, Which was the supreme authority. But Cromwell 
thought there was nothing to hope, and eveiy thing to fear, from 
such a body of men ; that they would destroy what the Lord had 
done. " We all forget God," said he, " and God will forget us. 
He will give us up to confusion, and these men will help it on, if 
left to themselves." Then he asked the great lawyer and chan- 
cellor, " What if a man should take upon himself to be king ? " — 
evidently having in view the regal power. But Whitelock pre- 
sented such powerful reasons against it, that Cromwell gave up the 
idea, though he was resolved to destroy the parliament. He then 
held repeated conferences with the officers of the army, who sym- 
pathized with him, and who supported him. At last, while parlia- 
ment was about to pass an obnoxious bill, Cromwell hurried to the 
House, taking with him a file of musketeers, having resolved what 
he would do. These he left in the lobby, and, taking his seat, 
listened a while to the discussion, and then rose, and addressed 
the House. Waxing warm, he told them, in violent language, 
" that they were deniers of justice, were oppressive, profane men, 
were planning to bring in Presbyterians, and would lose no time 
in destroying the cause they had deserted." Sir Harry Vane and 
Sir Peter Wentworth rose to remonstrate, but Cromwell, leaving his 
seat, walked up and down the floor, with his hat on, reproached 
the different members, who again remonstrated. But Cromwell, 
raising his voice, exclaimed, " You are no parliament. Get you 
gone. Give way to honester men." Then, stamping with his 
feet, the door opened, and the musketeers entered, and the mem- 
bers were dispersed, after giving vent to their feelings in the lan- 
guage of reproach. Most of them wore swords, but none offered 
resistance to the man they feared, and tamely departed. 

Thus was the constitution utterly subverted, and parliament, as 
well as the throne, destroyed. Cromwell published, the next day, 
a vindication of his conduct, setting forth the incapacity, selfish- 
ness, and corruption of the parliament, in which were some of the 



CHAP. XIII.] CROMWELL ASSUMES THE PROTECTORSHIP. 187 

best men England ever had, including Sir Harry Vane, Alger- 
non Sydney, and Sir Peter Wentworth. 

His next step was to order the continuance of all the courts of 
justice, as before, and summon a new parliament, the members of 
which were nominated by himself and his council of officers. The 
army, with Cromwell at the head, was now the supreme authority. 

The new parliament, composed of one hundred and twenty 
persons, assembled on the 4th of July, when Cromwell explained 
the reason of his conduct, and set forth the mercies of the Lord 
to England. This parliament was not constitutional, since it was 
not elected by the people of England, but by Cromwell, and there- 
fore would be likely to be his tool. But had the elections been 
left free, the Presbyterians would have been returned as the largest 
party, and they would have ruined the cause which Cromwell and 
the Independents sought to support. In revolutions, there cannot 
be pursued half measures. Revolutions are the contest between 
parties. The strongest party gains the ascendency, and keeps it 
if it can — never by old, constituted laws. In the English Revolu- 
tion the Independents gained this ascendency by their valor, enthu- 
siasm, and wisdom. And their great representative ruled in their 
name. 

The new members of parliament reappointed the old Council of 
State, at the head of which was Cromwell, abolished the High Court 
of Chancery, nominated commissioners to preside in courts of jus- 
tice, and proceeded to other sweeping changes, which alarmed their 
great nominator, who induced them to dissolve themselves and sur- 
render their trust into his hands, under the title of Lord Protector of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland. On the 16th of December, he was 
installed in his great office, with considerable pomp, in the Court 
of Chancery, and the new constitution was read, which invested 
him with all the powers of a king. It, however, ordained that he 
should rule with the aid of a parliament, which should have all 
the functions and powers of the old parliaments, should be assem- 
bled within five months, should last three years, and should consist 
of four hundred and sixty members. It provided for the main- 
tenance of the army and navy, of which the protector was the 
head, and decided that the great officers of state should be chosen 
by approbation of parliament. Religious toleration was proclaimed, 
and provision made for the support of the clergy. 



188 THE DUTCH WAR. [CHAP. XIII. 

Thus was the constitution of the nation changed, and a republic 
substituted for a monarchy, at the head of which was the ablest 
man of his age. And there was need of all his abilities. Eng- 
land then was engaged in war with the Dutch, and the internal 
state of the nation demanded the attention of a vigorous mind and 
a still more vigorous arm. 

The Dutch war was prosecuted with great vigor, and was 
signalized by the naval victories of Blake, Dean, and Monk over 
the celebrated Van Tromp and De Ruyter, the Dutch admirals. 
The war was caused by the commercial jealousies of the two na- 
tions, and by the unwillingness of the Prince of Orange, who had 
married a daughter of Charles I., to acknowledge the ambassador 
of the new English republic. But the superiority which the Eng- 
lish sailors evinced, soon taught the Dutch how dangerous it was 
to provoke a nation which should be its ally on all grounds of 
national policy, and peace was therefore honorably secured after 
a most successful war. 

The war being ended, the protector had more leisure to attend 
to business at home. Sir Matthew Hale was made chief justice, and 
Thurloe, secretary of state ; disorganizes were punished ; an insur- 
rection in Scotland was quelled by General Monk ; and order and 
law were restored. 

Meanwhile, the new parliament, the first which had been freely 
elected for fourteen years, soon manifested a spirit of opposition 
to Cromwell, deferred to vote him supplies, and annoyed him all in 
its power. Still he permitted the members to discuss trifling subjects 
and waste their time for five months ; but, at the earliest time the 
new constitution would allow, he summoned them to the Painted 
Chamber, made them a long speech, reminded them of their neg- 
lect in attending to the interests of the nation, while disputing 
about abstract questions, even while it was beset with dangers and 
difficulties, and then dissolved them, (January 22, 1656.) 

For the next eighteen months, he ruled without a parliament, 
and found no difficulty in raising supplies, and supporting his now 
unlimited power. During this time, he suppressed a dangerous 
insurrection in England itself, and carried on a successful and 
brilliant war against Spain, a power which he hated with all the 
capacity of hatred of which his nation has shown itself occasionally 
so capable. In the naval war with Spain, Blake was again the hero ; 



CHAP. XIII.] CROMWELL RULES WITHOUT A PARLIAMENT. 189 

and he succeeded in wresting from her the rich island of Jamaica, 
a possession which England has ever since greatly valued. 

Encouraged by his successes, Cromwell now called a third parlia- 
ment, which he opened the 17th of September, 1656, after ejecting 
one hundred of the members, on account of their political senti- 
ments. The new House voted for the prosecution of the Spanish 
war, granted ample supplies, and offered to Cromwell the title of 
king. But his council violently opposed it, and Cromwell found it 
expedient to relinquish this object of his heart. But his protector- 
ate was continued to him, and he was empowered to nominate 
his successor. 

In a short time, however, the spirit of the new parliament was 
manifested, not only by violent opposition to the protector, but 
in acts which would, if carried out, have subverted the government 
again, and have plunged England in anarchy. It was plain that the 
protector could not rule with a real representation of the nation. 
So he dissolved it ; and thus ended the last effort of Cromwell to 
rule with a parliament ; or, as his advocates say, to restore the 
constitution of his country. It was plain that there was too much 
party animosity and party ambition to permit the protector, 
shackled by the law, to cany out his designs of order and good 
government. Self-preservation compelled him to be suspicious 
and despotic, and also to prohibit the exercise of the Catholic 
worship, and to curtail the religious rights of the Quakers, Socini- 
ans, and Jews. The continual plottings and political disaffections 
of these parties forced him to rule on a system to which he was 
not at first inclined. England was not yet prepared for the civil 
and religious liberty at which the advocates of revolution had at 
first aimed. 

So Cromwell now resolved to rule alone. And he ruled well. 
His armies were victorious on the continent, and England was 
respected abroad, and prospered at home. The most able and 
upright men were appointed to office. The chairs of the univer- 
sities were filled with illustrious scholars, and the bench adorned 
with learned and honest judges. He defended the great interests 
of Protestantism on the Continent, and formed alliances which 
contributed to the political and commercial greatness of his coun- 
try. He generously assisted the persecuted Protestants in the 
valleys of Piedmont, and refused to make treaties with hostile 



190 THE PROTECTORATE. [CHAP. XIII. 

powers unless tha religious liberties of the Protestants were re- 
spected. He lived at Hampton Court, the old palace of Cardinal 
Wolsey, in simple and sober dignity ; nor was debauchery or riot 
seen at his court. He lived simply and unostentatiously, and to the 
last preserved the form, and perhaps the spirit, of his early piety. 
He surrounded himself with learned men, and patronized poets 
and scholars. Milton was his familiar guest, and the youthful 
Dryden was not excluded from his table. An outward morality, 
at least, was generally observed, and the strictest discipline was 
kept at his court. 

Had Cromwell's life been prolonged to threescore and ten, the 
history of England might have been different for the next two 
hundred years. But such was not his fortune. Providence 
removed him from the scene of his conflicts and his heroism not 
long after the dissolution of his last parliament. The death of a 
favorite daughter preyed upon his mind, and the cares of govern- 
ment undermined his constitution. He died on the 3d of Septem- 
ber, 1658, the anniversary of his great battles of Worcester and 
Dunbar, in the sixtieth year of his age. 

Two or three nights before he died, he was heard to ejaculate 
the following prayer, in the anticipation of his speedy departure: 
" Lord, though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in 
covenant with thee, through thy grace ; and I may, I will come to 
thee, for thy people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, 
a mean instrument to do them good, and Thee service ; and many 
of them have set too high value upon me, though others wish 
and would be glad of my death. Lord, however Thou disposest 
of me, continue and go on to do good to them. Give them 
consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love ; and, with 
the work of reformation, go on to deliver them, and make the 
name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too 
much on thy instrument to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon 
such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for 
they are Thy people too. And pardon the folly of this short 
prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake. And give me a good night, 
if it be Thy pleasure. Amen." 

Thus closed the career of Oliver Cromwell, the most remark- 
able man in the list of England's heroes. His motives and his 
honesty have often been impeached, and sometimes by the most 



CHAP. XIII.] REGAL GOVERNMENT RESTORED. 191 

excellent and discriminating, but oftener by heated partisans, who 
had no sympathy with his reforms or opinions. His genius, how- 
ever, has never been questioned, nor his extraordinary talent, for 
governing a nation in the most eventful period of its history. 
And there is a large class, and that class an increasing one, not 
confined to Independents or republicans, who look upon him 
as one habitually governed by a stern sense of duty, as a man 
who feared God and regarded justice, as a man sincerely devoted 
to the best interests of his country , and deserving of the highest 
praises of all enlightened critics. No man has ever been more ex- 
travagantly eulogized, or been the subject of more unsparing abuse 
and more cordial detestation. Some are incapable of viewing him 
in any other light than as a profound hypocrite and ambitious 
despot, while others see in him nothing but the saint and unspotted 
ruler. He had his defects ; for human nature, in all instances, is 
weak ; but in spite of these, and of many and great inconsistences, 
from which no sophistry can clear him, his great and varied 
excellences will ever entitle him to the rank accorded to him by 
such writers as Vaughan and Carlyle. 

With the death of Cromwell virtually ended the republic. 
" Puritanism without its king, is kingless, anarchic, falls into dislo- 
cation, staggers, and plunges into even deeper anarchy." His 
son Richard, according to his will, was proclaimed protector in his 
stead. But his reign was short. Petitions poured in from every 
quarter for the restoration of parliament. It was restored, and 
also with it royalty itself. General Monk advanced with his army 
from Scotland, and quartered in London. In May, 1660, Charles 
II. was proclaimed king at the gates of Westminster Hall. The 
experiment of a republic had been tried, and failed. Puritanism 
veiled its face. It was no longer the spirit of the nation. A great 
reaction commenced. Royalty, with new but disguised despotism, 
resumed its sway. 

References. — Carlyle's, Dr. Vaughan's, and D'Aubignfe's Life of 
Cromwell. Neal's History of the Puritans. Macaulay's History of 
England. Godwin's Commonwealth. The common histories of Eng- 
land. Milton's prose writings may be profitably read in this connection, 
and the various reviews and essays which have of late been written on 
the character of Cromwell. 



192 THE RESTORATION. [CHAP. XIV. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 

Few events in English history have ever been hailed with 
greater popular enthusiasm than the restoration of Charles II. 
On the 25th of May, 1660, he landed near Dover, with his two 
brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester. On the 29th of May, 
he made his triumphal entry into London. It was his birthday : 
he was thirty years of age, and in the full maturity of manly 
beauty, while his gracious manners and captivating speech made 
him the favorite of the people, as well as of the old nobility. The 
season was full of charms, and the spirits of all classes were 
buoyant with hope. Every thing conspired to give a glow to the 
popular enthusiasm. A long line of illustrious monarchs was 
restored. The hateful fires of religious fanaticism were apparently 
extinguished. An accomplished sovereign, disciplined in the school 
of adversity, of brilliant talents, amiable temper, fascinating 
manners, and singular experiences, had returned to the throne of 
his ancestors, and had sworn to rule by the laws, to forget old 
offences, and promote liberty of conscience. No longer should 
there be a government of soldiers, nor the rule of a man hostile to 
those pleasures and opinions which had ever been dear to the 
English people. With the return of the exiled prince, should also 
return joy, peace, and prosperity. For seventeen years, there 
had been violent political and social animosities, war, tyranny, 
social restraints, and religious fanaticism. But order and law 
were now to be reestablished, and the reign of cant and hypocrisy 
was now to end. Justice and mercy were to meet together in the 
person of a king who was represented to have all the virtues and 
none of the vices of his station and his times. So people reasoned 
and felt, of all classes and conditions. And why should they not 
rejoice in the restoration of such blessings ? The ways were 
strewn with flowers, the bells sent forth a merry peal, the streets 
were hung with tapestries ; while aldermen with their heavy 



CHAP. XIV.] GREAT PUBLIC REJOICINGS. 193 

chains, nobles in their robes of pomp, ladies with their silks and 
satins, and waving handkerchiefs, filling all the balconies and win- 
dows ; musicians, dancers, and exulting crowds, — all welcomed 
the return of Charles. Never was there so great a jubilee in 
London ; and never did monarch receive such addresses of flat- 
tery and loyalty. " Dread monarch," said the Earl of Manches- 
ter, in the House of Lords, " I offer no flattering titles. You 
are the desire of three kingdoms, the strength and stay of the 
tribes of the people." " Most royal sovereign," said one of the 
deputations, " the hearts of all are filled with veneration for you, 
confidence in you, longings for you. All degrees, and ages, and 
sexes, high, low, rich and poor, men, women, and children, join 
in sending up to Heaven one prayer, ' Long live King Charles II. ; ' 
so that the English air is not susceptible of any other sound ; 
bells, bonfires, peals of ordnance, shouts, and acclamations of 
the people bear no other moral ; nor can his majesty conceive 
with what joy, what cheerfulness, what lettings out of the soul, 
what expressions of transported minds, a stupendous concourse 
of people attended the proclamation of their most potent, most 
mighty, and most undoubted king." Such was the adulatory lan- 
guage addressed by the English people to the son of the king they 
had murdered, and to a man noted for every frivolity and vice that 
could degrade a sovereign. What are we to think of that public 
joy, and public sycophancy, after so many years of hard fighting 
for civil and religious liberty ? For what were the battles of 
Naseby and Worcester ? For what the Solemn League and Cove- 
nant ? For what the trial and execution of Charles I. ? For what 
the elevation of Cromwell ? Alas ! for what were all the experi- 
ments and sufferings of twenty years, the breaking up of old 
and mighty customs, and twenty years of blood, usurpation, and 
change ? What were the benefits of the Revolution ? Or, had it 
no benefits ? How happened it that a whole nation should simul- 
taneously rise and expel their monarch from a throne which his 
ancestors had enjoyed for six hundred years, and then, in so short 
a time, have elevated to this old throne ^ which was supposed to 
be subverted forever, the son of their insulted, humiliated, and 
murdered king ? and this without bloodshed, with every demon- 
stration of national rejoicings, and with every external mark of 
17 



194 REACTION TO REVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES. [CHAP. XIV. 

repentance for their ^ast conduct. Charles, too, was restored with- 
out any of those limitations by which the nation sought to curtail 
the power of his father. The nation surrendered to him more 
absolute power than the most ambitious kings, since the reign of 
John, had ever claimed, — more than he ever dared to expect. 
How shall we explain these things ? And what is the moral which 
they teach ? 

One fact is obvious, — that a great reaction had taken place in 
the national mind as to revolutionary principles. It is evident that a 
great disgust for the government of Cromwell had succeeded the 
antipathy to the royal government of Charles. All classes as 
ardently desired the restoration, as they had before favOred the 
rebellion. Even the old parliamentarians hailed the return of 
Charles, notwithstanding it was admitted that the protectorate was 
a vigorous administration ; that law and order were enforced ; that 
religious liberty was proclaimed ; that the rights of conscience 
were respected ; that literature and science were encouraged ; that 
the morals of the people were purified ; that the ordinances of 
religion were observed ; that vice and folly were discouraged ; that 
justice was ably administered ; that peace and plenty were en- 
joyed ; that prosperity attended the English arms abroad ; and that 
the nation was as much respected abroad as it was prosperous at 
home. These things were admitted by the very people who 
rejoiced in the restoration. And yet, in spite of all these substan- 
tial blessings, the reign of Cromwell was odious. Why was this ? 

It can only be explained on the supposition that there were 
unendurable evils connected with the administration of Cromwell, 
which more than balanced the benefits he conferred ; or, that 
expectations were held out by Charles of national benefits greater 
than those conferred by the republic ; or, that the nation had so 
retrograded in elevation of sentiment as to be unable to appreciate 
the excellences of Cromwell's administration. 

There is much to support all of these suppositions. In regard 
to the evils connected with the republic, it is certain that a large 
standing army was supported, and was necessary to uphold the 
government of the protector, in order to give to it efficiency and 
character. This army was expensive, and the people felt the 
burden. They always complain under taxation, whether necessary 



CHAP. XIV.] EXCELLENCES IN CHARLES'S GOVERNMENT. 195 

or not. Taxes ever make any government unpopular, and made 
the administration of Cromwell especially so. And the army 
showed the existence of a military despotism, which, however im- 
peratively called for, or rendered unavoidable by revolution, was 
still a hateful fact. The English never have liked the principle 
of a military despotism. And it was a bitter reflection to feel that 
so much blood and treasure had been expended to get rid of the 
arbitrary rule of the Stuarts, only to introduce a still more expen- 
sive and arbitrary government, under the name of a republic. 
Moreover, the eyes of the people were opened to the moral cor- 
ruptions incident to the support of a large army, without which the 
power of Cromwell would have been unsubstantial. He may 
originally have desired to establish his power on a civil basis, 
rather than a military one ; but his desires were not realized. The 
parliaments which he assembled were unpractical and disorderly. 
He was forced to rule without them. But the nation could not 
forget this great insult to their liberties, and to those privileges 
which had ever been dear to them. The preponderance of the 
civil power has, for several centuries, characterized the govern- 
ment ; and no blessings were sufficiently great to balance the evil, 
in the eye of an Englishman, of the preponderance of a military 
government, neither the excellence of Cromwell's life, nor the 
glory and greatness to which he raised the nation. 

Again, much was expected of Charles II., and there was much 
in his character and early administration to produce content. His 
manners were agreeable. He had no personal antipathies or 
jealousies. He selected, at first, the wisest and best of all parties 
to be his counsellors and ministers. He seemed to forget old 
offences. He was fond of pleasure ; was good-natured and affa- 
ble. He summoned a free parliament. His interests were made 
to appear identical with those of the people. He promised to rule 
by the laws. He did not openly infringe on the constitution. And 
he restored, what has ever been so dear to the great body of the 
nation, the Episcopal Church in all its beauty and grandeur, while 
he did not recommence the persecution of Puritans until some time 
had elapsed from his restoration. Above all, he disbanded the 
army, which was always distasteful to the people, — odious, oner- 
ous, and oppressive. The civil power again triumphed over that 



196 FAILURE OF THE PURITAN EXPERIMENT. [CHAP. XIV. 



4 



of the military, and circumstances existed which rendered the sub- 
version of liberty very difficult. Many adverse events transpired 
during his unfortunate and disgraceful reign ; but these, in the 
early part of it, had not, of course, been anticipated. 

There is also force in the third supposition, that the nation 
had retrograded in moral elevation. All writers speak of a strong 
reaction to the religious fervor of the early revolutionists. The 
moral influence of the army had proved destructive to the habits and 
sentiments of the people. A strong love of pleasure and demoral- 
izing amusements existed, when Charles was recalled. A general 
laxity of morals was lamented by the wisest and best of the nation. 
The religious convictions of enthusiasts survived their sympathies. 
Hypocrisy and cant succeeded fervor and honesty. Infidelity 
lurked in many a bosom in which devotional ardor had once warmly 
burned. Distrust of all philanthropy and all human virtue was as 
marked, as faith in the same previously had been. The ordi- 
nances of religion became irksome, and it was remembered with 
bitterness that the Puritans, in the days of their ascendency, had 
cruelly proscribed the most favorite pleasures and time-honored 
festivals of old England. But the love of them returned with re- 
doubled vigor. May-poles, wrestling-matches, bear-baitings, puppet- 
shows, bowls, horse-racing, betting, rope-dancing, romping under 
the mistletoe on Christmas, eating boars 1 heads, attending the thea- 
tres, health-drinking, — all these old-fashioned ways, in which the 
English sought merriment, were restored. The evil was chiefly 
in the excess to which these pleasures were carried ; and every 
thing, which bore any resemblance to the Puritans, was ridiculed 
and despised. The nation, as a nation, did not love Puritanism, or 
any thing pertaining to it, after the deep religious excitement had 
passed away. The people were ashamed of prayer-meetings, of 
speaking through their noses, of wearing their hair straight, of 
having their garments cut primly, of calling their children by the 
name of Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, Obadiah, &c. ; and, in short, 
of all customs and opinions peculiar to the Extreme Puritans. So 
general was the disgust of Puritanism, so eager were all to indulge 
in the pleasures that had been forbidden under the reign of Crom- 
well, so sick were they of the very name of republicanism, that 
Puritanism may be said to have proved, in England, a signal 
failure. 



CHAP. XIV.] REPEAL OF THE TRIENNIAL BILL. 197 

Such were some of the reasons of popular acclamation on the 
restoration of Charles II., and which we cannot consider entirely 
without force. A state of mind existed in England as favorable 
to the encroachments of royalty, as, twenty years before, it had 
been unfavorable. 

Charles was not a high-minded, or honest, or patriotic king ; and 
therefore we might naturally expect the growth of absolutism dur- 
ing his reign. The progress of absolutism is, indeed, one of its 
features. This, for a time, demands our notice. 

On the restoration of Charles II., his subjects made no particular 
stipulations respecting their liberties, which were incautiously 
intrusted to his hands. But, at first, he did not seem inclined to 
grasp at greater powers than what the constitution allowed him. 
He had the right to appoint the great officers of state, the privi- 
lege of veto on legislative enactments, the control of the army and 
navy, the regulation of all foreign intercourse, and the right of 
making peace and war. But the constitution did not allow him to 
rule without a parliament, or to raise taxes without its consent. 
The parliament might grant or withhold supplies at pleasure, and 
all money bills originated and were discussed in the House of 
Commons alone. These were the great principles of the English 
constitution, which Charles swore to maintain. 

The first form in which the encroaching temper of the king 
was manifested was, in causing the Triennial Bill to be repealed. 
This was indeed done by the parliament, but through the royal 
influence. This bill was not that a parliament should be assembled 
every three years, but that the interval between one session and 
another should not exceed that period. But this wise law, which 
had passed by acclamation during the reign of Charles I., and for 
which even Clarendon had voted, was regarded by Charles II. as 
subversive of the liberty of his crown ; and a supple, degenerate, 
and sycophantic parliament gratified his wishes. 

About the same time was passed the Corporation Act, which 
enjoined all magistrates, and persons of trust in corporations, to 
swear that they believed it unlawful, under any pretence whatever, 
to take arms against the king. The Presbyterians refused to take 
this oath ; and they were therefore excluded from offices of dignity 
and trust. The act bore hard upon all bodies of Dissenters and 
17* 



198 SECRET ALLIANCE WITH LOUIS XIV. [CHAP. XIV. 

Roman Catholics, tlje former of whom were most cruelly perse- 
cuted in this reign. 

The next most noticeable effort of Charles to extend his power, 
independently of the law, was his secret alliance with Louis XIV. 
This was not known to the nation, and even but to few of his min- 
isters, and was the most disgraceful act of his reign. For the mis- 
erable stipend of two hundred thousand pounds a year, he was 
ready to compromise the interests of the kingdom, and make him- 
self the slave of the most ambitious sovereign in Europe. He 
became a pensioner of France, and yet did not feel his disgrace. 
Clarendon, attached as he was to monarchy, and to the house of 
Stuart, could not join him in his base intrigues ; and therefore 
lost, as was to be expected, the royal favor. He had been the 
companion and counsellor of Charles in the days of his exile ; he 
had attempted to enkindle in his mind the desire of great deeds 
and virtues ; he had faithfully served him as chancellor and 
prime minister ; he was impartial and incorruptible ; he was as 
much attached to Episcopacy, as he was to monarchy ; he had 
even advised Charles to rule without a parliament ; and yet he was 
disgraced because he would not comply with all the wishes of his 
unscrupulous master. But Clarendon was, nevertheless, unpopu- 
lar-with the nation. He had advised Charles to sell Dunkirk, the 
proudest trophy of the Revolution, and had built for himself a 
splendid palace, on the site of the present Clarendon Hotel, in 
Albermarle Street, which the people called Dunkirk House. He 
was proud, ostentatious, and dictatorial, and was bitterly hostile to 
all democratic influences. He was too good for one party, and not 
good enough for the other, and therefore fell to the ground ; but 
he retired, if not with dignity, at least with safety. He retreated 
to the Continent, and there wrote his celebrated history of the 
Great Rebellion, a partial and bitter history, yet a valuable 
record of the great events of the age of revolution which he had 
witnessed and detested. 

Charles received the bribe of two hundred thousand pounds from 
the French king, with the hope of being made independent of his 
parliament, and with the condition of assisting Louis XIV. in his 
aggressive wars on the liberties of Europe, especially those of 
Holland. He was, at heart, an absolutist, and rejoiced in the 



CHAP. XIV.] VENALITY AND SYCOPHANCY OF PARLIAMENT. 199 

victories of the " Grand Monarch." But this supply was scarcely 
sufficient even for his pleasures, much less to support the ordinary 
pomp of a monarchy, and the civil and military powers of the state. 
So he had to resort to other means. 

It happened, fortunately for his encroachments, but unfortunate- 
ly for the nation, that the English parliament, at that period, was 
more corrupt, venal, base, and sycophantic than at any period 
under the Tudor kings, or at any subsequent period under the 
Hanoverian princes. The House of Commons made no indignant 
resistance ; it sent up but few spirited remonstrances ; but tamely 
acquiesced in the measures of Charles and his ministers. Its 
members were bought and sold with unblushing facility, and even 
were corrupted by the agents of the French king. One member 
received six thousand pounds for his vote. Twenty-nine of the 
members received from five hundred to twelve hundred pounds a 
year. Charles I. attempted to rule by opposition to the parlia- 
ment ; Charles II. by corrupting it. Hence it was nearly silent in 
view of his arbitrary spirit, his repeated encroachments, and his 
worthless public character. 

Among his worst acts was his shutting up the Exchequer, where 
the bankers and merchants had been in the habit of depositing 
money on the security of the funds, receiving a large interest of 
from eight to ten per cent. By closing the Exchequer, the bank- 
ers, unable to draw out their money, stopped payment ; and a 
universal panic was the consequence, during which many great 
failures happened. By this base violation of the public faith, 
Charles obtained one million three hundred thousand pounds. But 
it undermined his popularity more than any of his acts, since he 
touched the pockets of the people. The odium, however, fell 
chiefly on his ministers, especially those who received the name 
of the Cabal, from the fact that the initials of their names spelt 
that odious term of reproach, not unmerited in their case. 

These five ministers were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, 
Ashley, and Lauderdale ; and they were the great instruments of 
his tyranny. None of them had the talents or audacity of Straf- 
ford, or the narrowness and bigotry of Laud ; but their counsels 
were injurious to the nation. 

Clifford and Arlington were tolerably respectable, but indifferent 



200 RESTRICTIONS ON THE PRESS. [CHAP. XIV. 

to the glory and shame of their country; while Buckingham, Ash- 
ley, and Lauderdale were profligate, unprincipled, and dishonest to 
a great degree. They aided Charles to corrupt the parliament 
and deceive the nation. They removed all restraints on his will, 
and pandered to his depraved tastes. It was by their suggestion 
that the king shut up the Exchequer. They also favored restric- 
tions on the press. 

These restrictions were another abomination in the reign of 
Charles, but one ever peculiar to a despotic government. No 
book could be printed out of London, York, or the Universities. 
But these were not made wholly with a view of shackling the 
mind, but to prevent those libels and lampoons which made the 
government ridiculous in the eyes of the people. 

Nothing caused more popular indignation, during this reign, than 
the Forfeiture of the Corporation of the City of London. The 
power of the democracy resided, at this time, with the corpora- 
tions, and as long as they were actuated by the spirit of liberty, 
there was no prospect of obtaining a parliament entirely subser- 
vient to the king. It was determined to take away their charters ; 
and the infamous Judge Jeffreys was found a most subservient tool 
of royalty in undermining the liberties of the country. The cor- 
poration of London, however, received back its charter, after 
having yielded to the king the right of conferring the appointments 
of mayor, recorder, and sheriffs. 

Among other infringements on the constitution was the fining 
of jurors when they refused to act according to the direction of 
the judges. Juries were constantly intimidated, and their privi- 
leges were abridged. A new parliament, moreover, was not con- 
voked after three years had elapsed from the dissolution of the 
old one, which infringement was the more reprehensible, since the 
king had nothing to fear from the new House of Commons, the 
members of which vied with each other in a base compliancy with 
the royal will. 

But their sycophancy was nothing compared with what the 
bishops and clergy of the Established Church generally evinced. 
Absolute non-resistance was inculcated from the pulpits, and the 
doctrine ridiculed that power emanated from the people. The 
divine rights of kings, and the divine ordination of absolute power, 



CHAP. XIV.] HABEAS CORPUS ACT. 201 

were the themes of divines, while Oxford proclaimed doctrines 
worthy of Mariana and the Jesuits. 

Thus various influences contributed to make Charles II. absolute in 
England — the Courts of Justice, the Parliaments, the Universities, 
and the Church of England. Had he been as ambitious as he was 
fond of pleasure, as capable of ruling as he was capable of telling 
stories at the dinner table, he would, like Louis XIV., have reared 
an absolute throne in England. But he was too easy, too careless, 
too fond of pleasure to concentrate his thoughts on devising means 
to enslave his subjects. 

It must not, however, be supposed that all his subjects were in- 
different to his encroachments, in spite of the great reaction which 
had succeeded to liberal sentiments. Before he died, the spirit of 
resistance was beginning to be seen, and some checks to royal 
power were imposed by parliament itself. The Habeas Corpus 
Act, the most important since the declaration of Magna Charta, 
was passed, and through the influence of one of his former minis- 
ters, Ashley, now become Earl of Shaftesbury, who took the 
popular side, after having served all sides, but always with a 
view of advancing his own interests, a man of great versatility of 
genius, of great sagacity, and of varied learning. Had Charles 
continued much longer on the throne, it cannot be doubted that the 
nation would have been finally aroused to resist his spirit of en- 
croachment, for the principles of liberty had not been proclaimed 
in vain. 

Charles II. was a tyrant, and one of the worst kings that ever 
sat on the English throne. His leading defect was want of ear- 
nestness of character, which made him indifferent to the welfare of 
his country. England, during his reign, was reduced to compara- 
tive insignificance in the eyes of foreigners, and was neither 
feared nor respected. Her king was neither a powerful friend 
nor an implacable enemy, and left the Continental Powers to pur- 
sue their own ends unmolested and unrebuked. Most of the ad- 
ministrations of the English kings are interlinked with the whole 
system of European politics. But the reign of Charles is chiefly 
interesting in' relation to the domestic history of England. This 
history is chiefly the cabals of ministers, the intrigues of the 
court, the pleasures and follies of the king, the attacks he made 



202 TITUS OATES. [CHAP. XIV. 

on the constitution*without any direct warfare with his parliament, 
and the system of religious persecution, which was most intolerant. 

The king was at heart a Catholic ; and yet the persecution of 
the Catholics is one of the most signal events of the times. We 
can scarcely conceive, in this age, of the spirit of distrust and fear 
which pervaded the national mind in reference to the Catholics. 
Every calumny was believed. Every trifling offence was ex- 
aggerated, and by nearly all classes in the community, by the 
Episcopalians, as well as by the Presbyterians and the Independents. 

The most memorable of all the delusions and slanders of the 
times was produced by the perjuries of an unprincipled wretch 
called Titus Oates, who took advantage of the general infatuation 
to advance his individual interests. Like an artful politician, he 
had only to appeal to a dominant passion or prejudice, and he was 
sure of making his fortune. Like a cunning, popular orator, he 
had only to inflame the passions of the people, and he would pass 
as a genius and a prophet. Few are so abstractedly and coldly 
intellectual as not to be mainly governed by their tastes or passions. 
Even men of strong intellect have frequently strong prejudices ; 
and one has only to make himself master of these, in order to lead 
those who are infinitely their superiors. There is no proof that all 
who persecuted the Catholics in Charles's time were either weak 
or ignorant. But there is evidence of unbounded animosity, a 
traditional hatred, not much diminished since the Gunpowder Plot 
of Guy Fawkes. The whole nation was ready to believe any 
thing against the Catholics, and especially against their church, 
which was supposed to be persecuting and diabolical in all its prin- 
ciples and in all its practice. In this state of the popular mind, 
Oates made his hideous revelations. 

He was a broken-down clergyman of the Established Church, 
and had lost caste for disgraceful irregularities. But he professed 
to hate the Catholics, and such a virtue secured him friends. 
Among these was the Rev. Dr. Tonge, a man veiy weak, very 
credulous, and full of fears respecting the intrigues of the Catholics, 
but honest in his fears. Oates went to this clergyman, and a plan 
was concerted between them, by which Oates should' get a knowl- 
edge of the supposed intrigues of the Church of Rome. He pro- 
fessed himself a Catholic, went to the Continent, and entered a 



CHAP. XIV.] OATES's REVELATIONS. 203 

Catholic seminary, but was soon discharged for his scandalous irregu- 
larities. But he had been a Catholic long enough for his purposes. 
He returned to London, and revealed his pretended discoveries, 
among which he declared that the Jesuits had undertaken to restore 
the Catholic religion in England by force ; that they were resolved 
to take the king's life, and had actually offered a bribe of fifteen 
thousand pounds to the queen's physician ; that they had planned to 
burn London, and to set fire to all the shipping in the Thames ; that 
they were plotting to make a general massacre of the Protestants ; 
that a French army was about to invade England ; and that all 
the horrors of St. Bartholomew were to be again acted over! 
Ridiculous as were these assertions, they were believed, and without 
a particle of evidence ; so great was the national infatuation. The 
king and the Duke of York both pronounced the whole matter a 
forgery, and laughed at the credulity of the people, but had not suffi- 
cient generosity to prevent the triumph of the libellers. But Oates's 
testimony was not enough to convict any one, the law requiring 
two witnesses. But, in such a corrupt age, false witnesses could 
easily be procured. An infamous wretch, by the name of Bed- 
loe, was bribed, a man who had been imprisoned in Newgate for 
swindling. Others equally unscrupulous were soon added to 
the list of informers, and no calumnies, however gross and absurd, 
prevented the people from believing them. 

It happened that a man, by the name of Coleman, was suspected 
of intrigues. His papers were searched, and some passages in 
them, unfortunately, seemed to confirm the statements of Gates. 
To impartial eyes, these papers simply indicated a desire and a 
hope that the Catholic religion would be reestablished, in view of 
the predilections of Charles and James, and the general posture of 
affairs, just as some enthusiastic Jesuit missionary in the valley of 
the Mississippi may be supposed to write to his superior that Amer- 
ica is on the eve of conversion to Catholicism. 

But the general ferment was still more increased by the disap- 
pearance of an eminent justice of the peace, who had taken the 
depositions of Oates against Coleman. Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey 
was found dead, and with every mark of violence, in a field near 
London, and was probably murdered by some fanatical persons in 
the communion of the Church of Rome. But if so, the murder 



204 PENAL LAWS AGAINST CATHOLICS. [CHAP. XIV. 

was a great blunder. It was worse than a crime. The whole 
community were mad with rage and fear. The old penal laws 
were strictly enforced against the Catholics. The jails were filled 
with victims. London wore the appearance of a besieged city. 
The houses of the Catholics were every where searched, and two 
thousand of them imprisoned. Posts were planted in the streets, 
that chains might be thrown across them on the first alarm. The 
military, the train bands, and the volunteers were called out. 
Forty thousand men were kept under guard during the night. 
Numerous patrols paraded the streets. The gates of the Palace 
were closed, and the guards of the city were doubled, Oates was 
pronounced to be the savior of his country, lodged at Whitehall, 
and pensioned with twelve hundred pounds a year. 

Then flowed more innocent blood than had been shed for a long 
period. Catholics who were noble, and Catholics who were obscure, 
were alike judicially murdered ; and the courts of justice, instead 
of being places of refuge, were disgraced by the foulest abomi- 
nations. Every day new witnesses were produced of crimes 
which never happened, and new victims were offered up to appease 
the wrath of a prejudiced people. Among these victims of popu- 
lar frenzy was the Earl of Stafford, a venerable and venerated 
nobleman of sixty-nine years of age, against whom sufficient evi- 
dence was not found to convict him ; and whose only crime was in 
being at the head of the Catholic party. Yet he was found guilty 
by the House of Peers, fifty-five out of eighty-six having voted 
for his execution. He died on the scaffold, but with the greatest 
serenity, forgiving his persecutors, and compassionating their delu- 
sions. A future generation, during the reign of George IV., 
however, reversed his attainder, and did justice to his memory, 
and restored his descendants to their rank and fortune. 

If no other illustrious victims suffered, persecution was never- 
theless directed into other channels. Parliament passed an act 
that no person should sit in either House, unless he had previously 
taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the 
declaration that the worship of the Church of Rome was idolatrous. 
Catholics were disabled from prosecuting a suit in any court of law, 
from receiving any legacy, and from acting as executors or ad- 
ministrators of estates. This horrid bill, which outlawed the whole 



CHAP. XIV.] PERSECUTION OF DISSENTERS. 205 

Catholic population, had repeatedly miscarried, but, under influ- 
ence of the panic which Oates and his confederates created, was 
now triumphantly passed. Charles himself gave his royal assent, 
because he was afraid to stem the torrent of popular infatuation. 
And the English nation permitted one hundred and thirty years to 
elapse before the civil disabilities of the Catholics were removed, 
and then only by the most strenuous exertions of such a statesman 
as Sir Robert Peel. 

It is some satisfaction to know that justice at last overtook the 
chief authors of this diabolical infatuation. During the reign of 
James II., Oates and others were punished as they deserved. 
Oates's credit gradually passed away. He was fined, imprisoned, 
and whipped at the pillory until life itself had nearly fled. He 
died unlamented and detested, leaving behind him, to all posterity, 
an infamous notoriety. 

But the sufferings of the Catholics, during this reign, were more 
than exceeded by the sufferings of Dissenters, who were cruelly 
persecuted. All the various sects of the Protestants were odious and 
ridiculous in the eyes of the king. They were regarded as hostile 
in their sympathies, and treasonable in their designs. They were 
fined, imprisoned, mutilated, and whipped. An Act of Uniformity 
was passed, which restored the old penal laws of Elizabeth, and 
which subjected all to their penalty who did not use the Book of 
Common Prayer, and adhere strictly to the ritual of the Church of 
England. The oligarchical power of the bishops was restored, and 
two thousand ministers were driven from their livings, and com- 
pelled to seek a precarious support. Many other acts of flagrant 
injustice were passed by a subservient parliament, and cruelly car- 
ried into execution by unfeeling judges. But the religious perse- 
cution of dissenters was not consummated until the reign of James, 
under whose favor or direction the inhuman Jeffreys inflicted the 
most atrocious crimes which have ever been committed under the 
sanction of the law. But these will be more appropriately noticed 
under the reign of James II. Charles was not so cruel in his tem- 
per, or bigoted in his sentiments, as his brother James. He was 
rather a Gallio than a persecutor. He would permit any thing, 
rather than suffer himself to be interrupted in his pleasures. He 
was governed by his favorites and his women. He had not suffi- 
18 



206 EXECUTION OF RUSSELL AND SYDNEY. [CHAP. XIV. 

cient moral elevation to be earnest in any thing, even to be a 
bigot in religion. He vacillated between the infidelity of Hobbes 
and the superstitions of Rome. He lived a scoffer, and died a 
Catholic. His temper was easy, but so easy as not to prevent the 
persecution and ruin of his best supporters, when they had become 
odious to the nation. If he was incapable of enmity, he was also 
incapable of friendship. If he hated ho one with long-continued 
malignity, it was only because it was too much trouble to hate 
perseveringly. But he loved with no more constancy than he 
hated. He had no patriotism, and no appreciation of moral excel- 
lence. He would rather see half of the merchants of London 
ruined, and half of the Dissenters immured in gloomy prisons, than 
lose two hours of inglorious dalliance with one of his numerous 
concubines. A more contemptible prince never sat on the Eng- 
lish throne, or one whose whole reign was disgraced by a more 
constant succession of political blunders and social crimes. And 
yet he never fully lost his popularity, nor was his reign felt to be 
as burdensome as was that of the protector, Cromwell, thus show- 
ing how little the moral excellence of rulers is ordinarily appre- 
ciated or valued by a wilful or blinded generation. We love not 
the rebukers of our sins, or the opposers of our pleasures. We 
love those who prophesy smooth things, and " cry peace, when 
there is no peace." Such is man in his weakness and his degen- 
eracy ; and only an omnipotent power can change this ordinary 
temper of the devotees to pleasure and inglorious gains. 

Among the saddest events during the reign of Charles, were the 
executions of Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney. They were 
concerned, with a few other great men, in a conspiracy, which had 
for its object the restoration of greater liberty. They contem- 
plated an insurrection, known by the name of the Rye House 
Plot; but it was discovered, and Russell and Sydney became mar- 
tyrs. The former was the son of the Earl of Bedford, and the 
latter was the brother of the Earl of Leicester. Russell was a 
devoted Churchman, of pure morals, and greatly beloved by the 
people. Sydney was a strenuous republican, and was opposed to 
any particular form of church government. He thought that 
religion should be like a divine philosophy in the mind, and had 
great veneration for the doctrines of Plato. Nothing could save 



CHAP. XIV.] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ENGLAND. 207 

these illustrious men. The Duke of York and Jeffreys declared 

r^i that, if they were not executed, there would be no safety for them- 

M selves. They both suffered with great intrepidity, and the friends 

. of, liberty have ever since cherished their memoiy with peculiar 

fondness. 

Mr. Macaulay, in his recent History, has presented the manners 
and customs of England during the disgraceful reign of Charles II. 
It is impossible, in this brief survey, to allude to all those customs ; 
but we direct particularly the attention of readers to them, as 
described in his third chapter, from which it would appear, that a 
most manifest and most glorious progress has been made since that 
period in all the arts of civilization, both useful and ornamental. 
In those times, travelling was difficult and slow, from the badness 
of the roads and the imperfections of the carriages. Highway- 
men were secreted along the thoroughfares, and, in mounted 
troops, defied the law, and distressed the whole travelling com- 
munity. The transmission of letters by post was tardy and unfre- 
; quent, and the scandal of coffee-houses supplied the greatest want 
and the greatest luxury of modern times, the newspaper. There 
j was great scarcity of books in the country places, and the only 
press in England north of the Trent seems to have been at York. 
4to Literature was but feebly cultivated by country squires or country 
parsons, and female education was disgracefully neglected. Few 
rich men had libraries as large or valuable as are now common to 
shopkeepers and mechanics ; while the literary stores of a lady 
of the manor were confined chiefly to the prayer-book and the 
receipt-book. And those works which were produced or read were 
disgraced by licentious ribaldry, which had succeeded religious 
austerity. The drama was the only depaiiment of literature which 
compensated authors, and this was scandalous in the extreme. 
We cannot turn over the pages of one of the popular dramatists 
of the age without being shocked by the most culpable indecency. 
Even Dryden was no exception to the rule ; and his poetry, some 
of which is the most beautiful in the language, can hardly be put 
into the hands of the young without danger of corrupting them. 
Poets and all literary men lived by the bounty of the rich and 
great, and prospered only as they pandered to depraved passions. 
Many, of great intellectual excellence, died from want and mortifi- 



208 MILTON DRYDEN. [CHAP. XIV. 

cation ; so that tha poverty and distress of literary men became 
proverbial, and all worldly-wise people shunned contact with them 
as expensive and degrading. They were hunted from cocklofts to 
cellars by the minions of the law, and the foulest jails were often 
their only resting-place. The restoration of Charles proved un- 
fortunate to one great and immortal genius, whom no temptations 
could assail, and no rewards could bribe. He " possessed his soul 
in patience," and " soared above the Aonian mount," amid general 
levity and profligacy. Had he written for a pure, classic, and 
learned age, he could not have written with greater moral beauty. 
But he lived when no moral excellence was appreciated, and his 
claims on the gratitude of the world are beyond all estimation, 
when we remember that he wrote with the full consciousness, like 
the great Bacon, that his works would only be valued or read by 
future generations. Milton was, indeed, unmolested ; but he was 
sadly neglected in his blindness and in his greatness. But, like all 
the great teachers of the world, he was sustained by something 
higher than earthly applause, and labored, like an immortal artist, 
from the love which his labor excited, — labored to realize the 
work of art which his imagination had conceived, as well as to 
propagate ideas and sentiments which should tend to elevate man- 
kind. Dryden was his contemporary, but obtained a greater 
homage, not because he was more worthy, but because he adapted 
his genius to the taste of a frivolous and corrupt people. He after- 
wards wrote more unexceptionably, composed lyrics instead of 
fai'ces, and satires instead of plays. In his latter days, he could 
afford to write in a purer style ; and, as he became independent, 
he reared the superstructure of his glorious fame. But Dryden 
spent the best parts of his life as a panderer to the vices of 
the town, and was an idol chiefly, in Wills's Coffee House, of 
lampooners, and idlers, and scandal-mongers. Nor were there 
many people, in the church or in the. state, sufficiently influential 
and noble to stem the torrent. The city clergy were the most 
respectable, and the pulpits of London were occupied with twelve 
men who afterwards became bishops, and who are among the 
great ornaments of the sacred literature of their country. Sher- 
lock, Tillotson, Wake, Collier, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Fowl- 
er, Sharp, Tennison, and Beveridge made the Established Church 



CHAP. XIV.] CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 209 

respected in the town ; but the countiy clergy, as a whole, were 
ignorant and depressed. Not one living in fifty enabled the 
incumbent to bring up a family comfortably or respectably. The 
clergyman was disdained even by the county attorney, was hardly 
tolerated at the table of his patron, and could scarcely marry be- 
yond the rank of a cook or housekeeper. And his poverty and 
bondage continued so long that, in the times of Swift, the parson 
was a byword and a jest among the various servants in the house- 
holds of the great. Still there were eminent, clergymen amid 
the general depression of their order, both in and out of the Estab- 
lished Church. Besides the London preachers were many con- 
nected with the Universities and Cathedrals ; and there were some 
distinguished Dissenters, among whom Baxter, Howe, and Alleine, 
if there were no others, would alone have made the name of Puri- 
tan respectable. 

The saddest fact, in connection with the internal history of 
England, at this time, was the condition of the people. They had 
small wages, and many privations. They had no social rank, and 
were disgraced by many vices. They were ignorant and brutal. 
The wages of laborers only averaged four shillings a week, while 
those of mechanics were not equal to what some ordinarily earn, 
in this countiy and in these times, in a single day. Both peasants 
and artisans were not only ill paid, but ill used, and they died, 
miserably and prematurely, from famine and disease. Nor did 
sympathy exist for the misfortunes of the poor. There were no insti- 
tutions of public philanthropy. Jails were unvisited by the minis- 
ters of mercy, and the abodes of poverty were left by a careless 
generation to be dens of infamy and crime. Such was England 
two hundred years ago ; and there is no delusion more unwarranted 
by sober facts than that which supposes that those former times 
were better than our own, in any thing which abridges the labors or 
alleviates the miseries of mankind. " It is now the fashion to place 
the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute 
of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern 
footman ; when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the 
veiy sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse ; 
when men died faster in the purest countiy air than they now die 
in the most pestilential lanes of our towns ; and when men died 
18* 



210 CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. [CHAP. XIV. 

faster in the lanes 4>f our towns than they now die on the coast of 
Guinea. But we too shall, in our turn, be outstripped, and, in our 
turn, envied. There is constant improvement, as there also is 
constant discontent; and future generations may talk of the reign 
of Queen Victoria as a time when England was truly merry Eng- 
land, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympa- 
thy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when 
the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich." 



References. — Of all the works which' have yet appeared, respecting 
this interesting epoch, the new History of Macaulay is the most brilliant 
and instructive. Indeed, the student scarcely needs any other history, in 
spite of Macaulay's Whig doctrines. He may sacrifice something to effect ; 
and he may give ns pictures, instead of philosophy ; but, nevertheless, his 
book has transcendent merit, and will be read, by all classes, so long as 
English history is prized. Mackintosh's fragment, on the same period, is 
more philosophical, and possesses very great merits. Lingard's History is 
very valuable on this reign, and should be consulted. Hume, also, will 
never cease to please. Burnet is a prejudiced historian, but his work is 
an authority. The lives of Milton, Dryden, and Clarendon should also be 
read in this connection. Hallam has but treated the constitutional history 
of these times. See also Temple's Works ; the Life of William Lord 
Russell ; Rapin's History. Pepys, Dalrymple, Rymeri Feeder a, the Com- 
mons' Journal, and the Howard State Trials are not easily accessible, 
and not necessary, except to the historian. 



CHAP. XV.] ACCESSION OF JAMES II. 211 

CHAPTER XV. 

REIGN OF JAMES II. 

Charles II. died on the 6th of February, 1685, and his broth- 
er, the Duke of York, ascended his throne, without opposition, under 
the title of James II. As is usual with princes, on their accession, 
.he made many promises of ruling by the laws, and of defending 
the liberties of the nation. And he commenced his administration 
under good auspices. The country was at peace, he was not 
unpopular, and all classes and parties readily acquiesced in his 
government. 

He retained all the great officers who had served under his 
brother that he could trust ; and Rochester became prime minister, 
Sunderland kept possession of the Seals, and Godolphin was made 
lord chamberlain. He did not dismiss Halifax, Ormond, or Guild- 
ford, although he disliked and distrusted them, but abridged their 
powers, and mortified them by neglect. 

The Commons voted him one million two hundred thousand 
pounds, and the Scottish parliament added twenty-five thousand 
pounds more, and the Customs for life. But this sum he did not 
deem sufficient for his wants, and therefore, like his brother, ap- 
plied for aid to Louis XIV., and consented to become his pensioner 
and vassal, and for the paltry sum of two hundred thousand 
pounds. James received the money with tears of gratitude, hoping 
by this infamous pension to rule the nation without a parliament. 
It was not, of course, known to the nation, or even to his ministers, 
generally. 

He was scarcely crowned before England was invaded by the 
Duke of Monmouth, natural son of Charles II., and Scotland by the 
Duke of Argyle, with a view of ejecting James from the throne. 

Both these noblemen were exiles in Holland, and both were 
justly obnoxious to the government for their treasonable intentions 
and acts. Argyle was loath to engage in an enterprise so desperate 
as the conquest of England ; but he was an enthusiast, was at the 



212 MONMOUTH LANDS IN ENGLAND. [CHAP. XV. 

head of the most powerful of the Scottish clans, the Campbells, 
and he hoped for a general rising throughout Scotland, to put 
down what was regarded as idolatry, and to strike a blow for 
liberty and the Kirk. 

Having concerted his measures with Monmouth, he set sail from 
Holland, the 2d of May, 1685, in spite of all the efforts of the 
English minister, and landed at Kirkwald, one of the Orkney 
Islands. .But his objects were well known, and the whole militia 
of the land were put under arms to resist him. He, however, 
collected a force of two thousand five hundred Highlanders, and 
marched towards Glasgow; but he was miserably betrayed and 
deserted. His forces were dispersed, and he himself was seized 
while attempting to escape in disguise, brought to Edinburgh, 
and beheaded. His followers were treated with great harshness, 
but the rebellion was completely suppressed. 

Monmouth had agreed to sail in six days from the departure 
of Argyle ; but he lingered at Brussels, loath to part from a beau- 
tiful mistress, the Lady Henrietta Wentworth. It was a month 
before he set sail from the Texel, with about eighty officers and 
one hundred and fifty followers — a small force to overturn the 
throne. But he relied on his popularity with the people, and on 
a false and exaggerated account of the unpopularity of James. 
He landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, about the middle of June, and 
forthwith issued a flaming proclamation, inviting all to join his 
standard, as a deliverer from the cruel despotism of a Catholic 
prince, whom he accused of every crime — of the burning of 
London, of the Popish Plot, of the condemnation of Russell and 
Sydney, of poisoning the late king, and of infringements on the 
constitution. In this declaration, falsehood was mingled with truth, 
but well adapted to inflame the passions of the people. He was 
supported by many who firmly believed that his mother, Lucy 
Walters, was the lawful wife of Charles II. He, of course, 
claimed the English throne, but professed to waive his rights until 
they should be settled by a parliament. The adventurer grossly 
misunderstood the temper of the people, and the extent to which 
his claims were recognized. He was unprovided with money, with 
generals, and with troops. He collected a few regiments from the 
common people, and advanced to Somersetshire. At Taunton his 



CHAP. XV.] BATTLE OF SEDGEMOOR. 213 

reception was flattering. All classes welcomed him as a deliverer 
from Heaven, and the poor rent the air with acclamations and 
shouts. His path was strewed with flowers, and the windows were 
crowded with ladies, who waived their handkerchiefs, and even 
waited upon him with a large deputation. Twenty-six lovely 
maidens presented the handsome son of Charles II. with standards 
and a Bible, which he kissed, and promised to defend. 

But all this enthusiasm was soon to end. The Duke of 
Albermarle — the old General Monk, who restored Charles II. — 
advanced against him with the militia of the country, and Mon- 
mouth was supported only by the vulgar, the weak, and the 
credulous-. Not a single nobleman joined his standard, and but 
few of the gentry. He made innumerable blunders. He lost 
time by vain attempts to drill the peasants and farmers who 
followed his fortunes. He slowly advanced to the west of 
England, where he hoped to be joined by the body of the people. 
But all men of station and influence stood aloof. Discouraged 
and dismayed, he reached Wells, and pushed forward to capture 
Bristol, then the second city in the kingdom. He was again 
disappointed. He was forced, from unexpected calamities, to 
abandon the enterprise. He then turned his eye to Wilts ; but 
when he arrived at the borders of the county, he found that none 
of the bodies on which he had calculated had made their appear- 
ance. At Phillips Norton was a slight skirmish, which ended 
favorably to Monmouth, in which the young Duke of Grafton, 
natural son of Charles II., distinguished himself against his half 
brother ; but Monmouth was discouraged, and fell back to Bridge- 
water. Meanwhile the royal army approached, and encamped at 
Sedgemoor. Here was fought a decisive battle, which was fatal 
to the rebels, "the last deserving the name of battle, that has 
been fought on English ground." Monmouth, when all was 
lost, fled from the field, and hastened to the British Channel, 
hoping to gain the Continent. He was found near the New 
Forest, hidden in a ditch, exhausted by hunger and fatigue. 
He was sent, under a strong guard, to Kingwood ; and all that was 
left him was, to prepare to meet the death of a rebel. But he 
clung to life, so justly forfeited, with singular tenacity. He 
abjectly and meanly sued for pardon from that inexorable tyrant, 



214 DEATH OF MONMOUTH. [CHAT. XV. 

who never forgot or forgave the slightest resistance from a friend, 
when even that resistance was lawful, much less rebellion from a 
man he both hated and despised. He was transferred to London, 
lodged in the Tower, and executed in a bungling manner by 
"Jack Ketch" — the name given for several centuries to the pub- 
lic executioner. He was buried under St. Peter's Chapel, in the 
Tower, where reposed the headless bodies of so many noted saints 
and political martyrs — the great Somerset, and the still greater 
Northumberland, the two Earls of Essex, and the fourth Duke of 
Norfolk, and other great men who figured in the reigns of the 
Plantagenets and the Tudors. 

Monmouth's rebellion was completely suppressed, and a most 
signal vengeance was inflicted on all who were concerned in it. 
No mercy was shown, on the part of government, to any party 
or person. 

Of the agents of James in punishing all concerned in the 
rebellion, there were two, preeminently, whose names are con- 
signed to an infamous immortality. The records of English 
history contain no two names so loathsome and hateful as Colonel 
Kirke and Judge Jeffreys. 

The former was left, by Feversham, in command of the royal 
forces at Bridgewater, after the battle of Sedgemoor. He had 
already gained an unenviable notoriety, as governor of Tangier, 
where he displayed the worst vices of a tyrant and a sensualist ; 
and his regiment had imitated him in his disgraceful brutality. But 
this leader and these troops were now let loose on the people of 
Somersetshire. One hundred captives were put to death during 
the week which succeeded the battle. His irregular butcheries, 
however, were not according to the taste of the king. A more 
systematic slaughter, under the sanctions of the law, was devised, 
and Jeffreys was sent into the Western Circuit, to try the numer- 
ous persons who were immured in the jails of the western counties. 

Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's 
Bench, was not deficient in talent, but was constitutionally the 
victim of violent passions. He first attracted notice as an insolent 
barrister at the Old Bailey Court, who had a rare tact in cross- 
examining criminals and browbeating witnesses. According to 
Macaulay, " impudence and ferocity sat upon his brow, while all 



CHAP. XV.] BRUTALITY OF JEFFREYS. 215 

tenderness for the feelings of others, all self-respect, all sense of 
the becoming, were obliterated from his mind. He acquired a 
boundless command of the rhetoric in which the vulgar express 
hatred and contempt. The profusion of his maledictions could 
hardly be rivalled in the Fish Market or Bear Garden. His yell 
of fury sounded, as one who often heard it said, like the thunder 
of the judgment day. He early became common Serjeant, and 
then recorder of London. As soon as he obtained all the city 
could give, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass and his 
tongue of venom to the court." He was just the man whom Charles 
II. wanted as a tool. He was made chief justice of the highest 
court of criminal law in the realm, and discharged its duties en- 
tirely to the satisfaction of a king resolved on the subjection of the 
English nation. His violence, at all times, was frightful ; but when 
he was drunk, it was terrific : and he was generally intoxicated. 
His first exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sydney. 
On the death of Charles, he obtained from James a peerage, and 
a seat in the Cabinet, a signal mark of royal approbation. In 
prospect of yet greater honors, he was ready to do whatever James 
required. James wished the most summary vengeance inflicted 
on the rebels, and Jeffreys, with his tiger ferocity, was ready to 
execute his will. 

Nothing is more memorable than those " bloody assizes " which 
he held in those counties through which Monmouth had passed. 
Nothing is remembered with more execration. Nothing ever 
equalled the brutal cruelty of the judge. His fury seemed to be 
directed with peculiar violence upon the Dissenters. " Show me," 
said he, "a Presbyterian, and I will show thee a lying knave. 
Presbyterianism has all manner of villany in it. There is not one 
of those lying, snivelling, canting Presbyterians, but, one way or 
another, has had a hand in the rebellion." He sentenced nearly 
all who were accused, to be hanged or burned ; and the excess of 
his barbarities called forth pity and indignation even from devoted 
loyalists. He boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all 
his predecessors together since the Conquest. On a single 
circuit, he hanged three hundred and fifty ; some of these were 
people of great worth, and many of them were innocent ; while 
many whom he spared from an ignominious death, were sentenced 



216 PERSECUTION OF THE DISSENTERS. [CHAP. XV. 

to the most cruel punishments — to the lash of the pillory, to im- 
prisonment in the foulest jails, to mutilation, to banishment, and to 
heavy fines. 

King James watched the conduct of the inhuman Jeffreys 
with delight, and rewarded him with the Great Seal. The Old 
Bailey lawyer had now climbed to the greatest height to which a 
subject could aspire. He was Lord Chancellor of England — the 
confidential friend and agent of the king, and his unscrupulous 
instrument in imposing the yoke of bondage on an insulted nation. 

At this period, the condition of the Puritans was deplorable. 
At no previous time was persecution more inveterate, not even 
under the administration of Laud and Strafford. The persecution 
commenced soon after the restoration of Charles II., and increased 
in malignity until the elevation of Jeffreys to the chancellorship. 
The sufferings of no class of sectaries bore any proportion to theirs. 
They found it difficult to meet together for prayer or exhortation, 
even in the smallest assemblies. Their ministers were introduced 
in disguise. Their houses were searched. They were fined, im- 
prisoned, and banished. Among the ministers who were deprived 
of their livings, were Gilpin, Bates, Howe, Owen, Baxter, Calamy, 
Poole, Charnock, and Flavel, who still, after a lapse of one 
hundred and fifty years, enjoy a wide-spread reputation as stan- 
dard writers on theological subjects. These great lights of the 
seventeenth century were doomed to privation and poverty, with 
thousands of their brethren, most of whom had been educated at 
the Universities, and were among the best men in the kingdom. 
All the Stuart kings hated the Dissenters, but none hated them more 
than Charles II. and James II. Under their sanction, complying 
parliaments passed repeated acts of injustice and cruelty. The laws 
which were enacted during Queen Elizabeth's reign were reenacted 
and enforced. The Act of Uniformity, in one day, ejected two 
thousand ministers from their parishes, because they refused to 
conform to the standard of the Established Church. The Con- 
venticle Act ordained that if any person, above sixteen years 
of age, should be present at any religious meeting, in any 
other manner than allowed by the Church of England, he 
should suffer three months' imprisonment, or pay a fine of five 
pounds ; that six months' imprisonment and ten pounds fine should 



CHAP. XV.] PERSECUTION OF THE DISSENTERS. 217 

be inflicted as a penalty for the second offence, and banishment 
for the third. Married women, taken at "conventicles," were 
sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. It is calculated that 
twenty-five thousand Dissenters were immured in gloomy prisons, 
and that four thousand of the sect of the Quakers died during their 
imprisonment in consequence of the filth and malaria of the jails, 
added to cruel treatment. 

Among the illustrious men who suffered most unjustly, was 
Richard Baxter, the glory of the Presbyterian party. He 
was minister at Kidderminster, where he was content to labor 
in an humble sphere, having refused a bishopric. He had 
written one hundred and forty-five distinct treatises, in two 
hundred volumes, which were characterized for learning and 
talent. But neither his age, nor piety, nor commanding virtues 
could screen him from the cruelties of Jeffreys ; and, in fifteen 
years, he was five times imprisoned. His sufferings drew tears 
from Sir Matthew Hale, with whose friendship he had been hon- 
ored. " But he who had enjoyed the confidence of the best of 
judges, was cruelly insulted by the worst." When he wished to 
plead his cause, the drunken chief justice replied, " O Richard, 
Richard, thou art an old fellow and an old knave. Thou hast writ- 
ten books enough to load a cart, every one of which is as full of 
sedition as an egg is full of meat. I know that thou hast a mighty 
party, and I see a great many of the brotherhood in corners, and 
a doctor of divinity at your elbow ; but, by the grace of God, I 
will crush you all." 

Entirely a different man was John Bunyan, not so influential 
or learned, but equally worthy. He belonged to the sect of the 
Baptists, and stands at the head of all unlettered men of genius — 
the most successful writer of allegory that any age has seen. 
The Pilgrim's Progress is the most popular religious work ever 
published, full of genius and beauty, and a complete exhibition of 
the Calvinistic theology, and the experiences of the Christian life. 
This book shows, the triumph of genius over learning, and the 
people's appreciation of exalted merit. Its author, an illiterate 
tinker, a travelling preacher, who spent the best part of his life 
between the houses of the poor and the county jails, the object 
of reproach and ignominy, now, however, takes a proud place, in 
19 



218 GEORGE FOX. [CHAP. XV. 

the world's estimation, with the master minds of all nations — with 
Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. He has arisen above the preju- 
dices of the great and fashionable ; and the learned and aristocratic 
Southey has sought to be the biographer of his sorrows and the 
expounder of his visions. The proud bishops who disdained him, 
the haughty judges who condemned him, are now chiefly known 
as his persecutors, while he continues to be more honored and 
extolled with every succeeding generation. 

Another illustrious victim of religious persecution in that age, 
illustrious in our eyes, but ignoble in the eyes of his contempora- 
ries, was George Fox, the founder of the sect of the Quakers. He, 
like Bunyan, was of humble birth and imperfect education. Like 
him, he derived his knowledge from communion with his own soul — 
from inward experiences — from religious contemplations. He was 
a man of vigorous intellect, and capable of intense intellectual 
action. His first studies were the mysteries of theology — the 
great questions respecting duty and destiny ; and these agitated his 
earnest mind almost to despair. In his anxiety, he sought conso- 
lation from the clergy, but they did not remove the burdens of his 
soul. Like an old Syriac monk, he sought the fields and unfre- 
quented solitudes, where he gave loose to his imagination, and 
where celestial beings came to comfort him. He despised alike 
the reasonings of philosophers, the dogmas of divines, and the 
disputes of wrangling sectarians. He rose above all their preju- 
dices, and sought light and truth from original sources. His peace 
was based on the conviction that God's Holy Spirit spoke directly 
to his soul ; and this was above reason, above authority, a surer 
guide than any outward or written revelation. While this divine 
voice was above the Scriptures, it never conflicted with them, for 
they were revealed also to inspired men. Hence the Scriptures 
were not to be disdained, but were to be a guide, and literally to 
be obeyed. He would not swear, or fight, to save his life, nor to 
save a world, because he was directly commanded to abstain from 
sweai-ing and fighting. He abhorred all principles of expediency, 
and would do right, or what the inspired voice within him assured 
him to be right, regardless of all consequences and all tribulations. 
He believed in the power of justice to protect itself, and reposed on 
the moral dignity of virtue. Love, to his mind, was an omnipotent 



CHAP. XV.] PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS. 219 

weapon. He disdained force to accomplish important ends, and 
sought no control over government, except by intelligence. He 
believed that ideas and truth alone were at the basis of all great 
and permanent revolutions ; these he was ever ready to de- 
clare ; these were sure to produce, in the end, all needed reforms ; 
these would be revealed to the earnest inquirer. He disliked all 
forms and pompous ceremonials in the worship of God, for they 
seemed useless and idolatrous. God was a Spirit, and to be wor- 
shipped in spirit and in truth. And set singing was to be dispensed 
with, like set forms of prayer, and only edifying as prompted by 
the Spirit. He even objected to splendid places for the worship of 
God, and dispensed with steeples, and bells, and organs. The 
sacraments, too, were needless, being mere symbols, or shadows 
of better things, not obligatory, but to be put on the same footing 
as those Jewish ceremonies which the Savior abrogated. The 
mind of Fox discarded all aids to devotion, all titles of honor, all 
distinctions which arose in pride and egotism. Hypocrisy he ab- 
horred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the Pharisees, on 
whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too, would 
denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he fancied 
he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the church, 
or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity and 
sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar star, and 
this would be revealed by the " inner light," the peculiar genius of his 
whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty and 
holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of 
conceit and spiritual pride — the grand peculiarity of fanaticism 
in all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as 
the notion of special divine illumination ? 

No wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they 
set at nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws 
of ages. They shocked all conservative minds ; all rulers and 
dignitaries ; all men attached to systems ; all syllogistic reasoners 
and dialectical theologians; all fashionable and worldly people ; 
all sects and parties attached to creeds and forms. Neither their 
inoffensive lives, nor their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their ele- 
vated spiritualism could screen them from the wrath of judges, 
bishops, and legislators. They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, 



220 DESPOTIC POWER OF JAMES. [CHAP. XV. 

and lacerated without mercy. But they endured their afflictions 
with patience, and never lost their faith in truth, or their trust in 
God. Generally, they belonged to the humbler classes, although 
some men illustrious for birth and wealth joined their persecuted 
ranks, the most influential of whom was William Penn, who lived 
to be their intercessor and protector, and the glorious founder and 
legislator of one of the most flourishing and virtuous colonies that, 
in those days of tribulation, settled in the wilderness of North 
America ; a colony of men who were true to their enlightened 
principles, and who were saved from the murderous tomahawk of 
the Indian, when all other settlements were scenes of cruelty and 
vengeance. 

James had now suppressed rebellion ; he had filled the Dissenters 
with fear ; and he met with no resistance from his parliaments. 
The judges and the bishops were ready to cooperate with his min- 
isters in imposing a despotic yoke. All officers of the crown were 
dismissed the moment they dissented from his policy, or protested 
against his acts. Even judges were removed to make way for the 
most unscrupulous of tools. 

His power, to all appearance, was consolidated ; and he now 
began, without disguise, to advance the two great objects which 
were dearest to his heart — the restoration of the Catholic religion, 
and the imposition of a despotic yoke. He wished to be, like 
Louis XIV., a despotic and absolute prince ; and, to secure this 
end, he was ready to violate the constitution of his country. The 
three inglorious years of his reign were a succession of encroach- 
ments and usurpations. 

Indeed, among his first acts was the collection of the revenue 
without an act of parliament. To cover this stretch of arbitrary 
power, the court procured addresses from public bodies, in which 
the king was thanked for the royal care he extended to the customs 
and excise. 

In order to protect the Catholics, who had been persecuted under 
the last reign, he was obliged to show regard to other persecuted 
bodies. So he issued a warrant, releasing from confinement all 
who were imprisoned for conscience' sake. Had he simply desired 
universal toleration, this act would merit our highest praises ; but 
,it was soon evident that he wished to elevate the Catholics at the 



CHAP. XV.] FAVOR EXTENDED TO CATHOLICS. 221 

expense of all the rest. James was a sincere but bigoted devotee 
to the Church of Rome, and all things were deemed lawful, if he 
could but advance the interests of a party, to which nearly 
the whole nation was bitterly opposed. Roman Catholics were 
proscribed by the laws. The Test Act excluded from civil and 
military office all who dissented from the Established Church. The 
laws were unjust, but still they were the laws which James had 
sworn to obey. Had he scrupulously observed them, and kept his 
faith, there can be no doubt that they would, in good time, have 
been modified. 

But James would not wait for constitutional measures. He 
resolved to elevate Catholics to the highest offices of both the state 
and the church, and this in defiance of the laws and of the wishes 
of a great majority of the nation. He accordingly gave commis- 
sions to Catholics to serve as officers in the army ; he made Catho- 
lics his confidential advisers ; he introduced Jesuits into London ; 
he received a Papal nuncio, and he offered the livings of the Church 
of England to needy Catholic adventurers. He sought, by threats 
and artifices, to secure the repeal of the Test Act, by which 
Catholics were excluded from office. Halifax, the ablest of his 
ministers, remonstrated, and he was turned out of his employ- 
ments. But he formed the soul and the centre of an opposition, 
which finally drove the king from his throne. He united with 
Devonshire and other Whig nobles, and their influence was suffi- 
cient to defeat many cherished objects of the king. When oppo- 
sition appeared, however, in parliament, it was prorogued or 
dissolved, and the old courses of the Stuart kings were resorted to. 

Among his various acts of infringement, which gave great scan- 
dal, even in those degenerate times, was the abuse of the dis- 
pensing power — a prerogative he had inherited, but which had 
never been strictly defined. By means of this, he intended to 
admit Catholics to all offices in the realm. He began by grant- 
ing to the whole Roman Catholic body a dispensation from all 
the statutes which imposed penalties and tests. A general indul- 
gence was proclaimed, and the courts of law were compelled to 
acknowledge that the right of dispensing had not been infringed. 
Four of the judges refused to accede to what was plainly illegal. 
They were dismissed ; for, at that time, even judges held office 
19* 



222 HIGH COMMISSION COURT. [CHAP. XV. 

during the pleasure of the king, and not, as in these times, for life. 
They had not the independence which has ever been so requisite 
for the bench. Nor would all his counsellors and ministers accede 
to his design, and those who were refractory were turned out. As 
soon as a servile bench of judges recognized this outrage on the 
constitution, four Catholic noblemen were admitted as privy coun- 
sellors, and some clergymen, converted to Romanism, were per- 
mitted to hold their livings. James even bestowed the deaneiy 
of Christ Church, one of the highest dignities in the University of 
Oxford, on a notorious Catholic, and threatened to do at Cambridge 
what had been done at Oxford. The bishopric of Oxford was 
bestowed upon Parker, who was more Catholic than Protestant, 
and that of Chester was given to a sycophant of no character. 
James made no secret of his intentions to restore the Catholic 
religion, and systematically labored to destroy the Established 
Church. In order to effect this, he created a tribunal, which not 
materially differed from the celebrated High Commission Court of 
Elizabeth, and to break up which was one great object of the rev- 
olutionists who brought Charles I. to the block — the most odious 
court ever established by royal despotism in England. The mem- 
bers of this High Commission Court, which James instituted to try 
all ecclesiastical cases, were, with one or two exceptions, noto- 
riously the most venal and tyrannical of all his agents — Jeffreys, 
the Chancellor ; Crewe, Bishop of Durham ; Sprat, Bishop of Roch- 
ester ; the Earl of Rochester, Lord Treasurer ; Sunderland, the 
Lord President ; and Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. 
This court summoned Compton, the Bishop of London, to its tri- 
bunal, because he had not suspended Dr. Sharp, one of the clergy 
of London, when requested to do so by the king — a man who had 
committed no crime, but simply discharged his duty with fidelity. 
The bishop was suspended from his spiritual functions, and the 
charge of his diocese was committed to two of his judges. But this 
court, not content with depriving numerous clergymen of their 
spiritual functions, because they would not betray their own church, 
went so far as to sit in judgment on the two greatest corporations 
in the land, — the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, — 
institutions which had ever befriended the Stuart kings in their 
crimes and misfortunes. James was infatuated enough to quarrel 



CHAP. XV.] QUARREL WITH THE UNIVERSITIES. 223 

with these great bodies, because they would not approve of his 
measures to overturn the church with which they were con- 
nected, and which it was their duty and interest to uphold. 
The king had commanded Cambridge to bestow the degree 
of master of arts on a Benedictine monk, which was against 
the laws of the University and of parliament. The University 
refused to act against the law, and, in consequence, the vice- 
chancellor and the senate, which consisted of doctors and 
masters, were summoned to the Court of High Commission. The 
vice-chancellor, Pechell, was deprived of his office and emolu- 
ments, which were of the nature of freehold property. But this 
was not the worst act of the infatuated monarch. He insisted on 
imposing a Roman Catholic in the presidential chair of Magdalen 
College, one of the richest and most venerable of the University 
of Oxford, against even the friendly remonstrances of his best 
friends, even of his Catholic counsellors, and not only against the 
advice of his friends, but against all the laws of the land and of 
the rights of the University ; for the proposed president, Farmer, 
was a Catholic, and was not a fellow of the college, and therefore 
especially disqualified. He was also a man of depraved morals. 
The fellows refused to elect Farmer, and chose John Hough 
instead. They were accordingly cited to the infamous court of 
which Jeffreys was the presiding and controlling genius. Their 
election was set aside, but Farmer was not confirmed, being too 
vile even for Jeffreys to sustain. 

The king was exceedingly enraged at the opposition he received 
from the University. He resolved to visit it. On his arrival, he 
summoned the fellows of Magdalen College, and commanded them 
to obey him in the matter of a president. They still held out in 
opposition, and the king, mortified and enraged, quitted Oxford to 
resort to bolder measures. A special commission was instituted. 
Hough was forcibly ejected, and the Bishop of Oxford installed, 
against the voice of all the fellows but two. But the blinded king 
was not yet content. The fellows were expelled from the Univer- 
sity by a royal edict, and the high commissioner pronounced the 
ejected fellows incapable of ever holding any church preferment. 

But these severities were blunders, and produced a different 
effect from what was anticipated. The nation was indignant ; the 



224 MAGDALEN COLLEGE. [CHAP. XV. 

Universities lost all reverence ; the clergy, in a body, were alien- 
ated ; and the whole aristocracy were filled with defiance. 

But the king, nevertheless, for a time, prevailed against all 
opposition ; and, now that the fellows of Magdalen College were 
expelled, he turned it into a Popish seminary, admitted in one 
day twelve Roman Catholics as fellows, and appointed a Roman 
Catholic bishop to preside over them. This last insult was felt to 
the extremities of the kingdom ; and bitter resentment took the 
place of former loyalty. James was now regarded, by his old 
friends even, as a tyrant, and as a man destined to destruction. 
And, indeed, he seemed like one completely infatuated, bent on 
the ruin of that church which even James I. and the other Stuart 
kings regarded as the surest and firmest pillar of the throne. 

The bishops of the English Church had in times past, as well 
as the Universities, inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience ; 
and oppression must be very grievous indeed which would induce 
them to oppose the royal will. But James had completely alien- 
ated them, and they, reluctantly, at last, threw themselves into the 
ranks of opposition. Had they remained true to him, he might 
still have held his sceptre ; but it was impossible that any body of 
men could longer bear his injustice and tyranny. 

From motives as impossible to fathom, as it is difficult to account 
for the actions of a madman, he ordered that the Declaration of 
Indulgence, an unconstitutional act, should be read publicly 
from all the pulpits in the kingdom. The London clergy, 
the most respectable and influential in the realm, made up their 
minds to disregard the order, and the bishops sustained them in 
their refusal. The archbishop and six bishops accordingly signed 
a petition to the king, which embodied the views of the London 
clergy. It was presented to the tyrant, by the prelates in a body, 
at his palace. He chose to consider it as a treasonable and 
libellous act — as nothing short of rebellion. The conduct of the 
prelates was generally and enthusiastically approved by the nation, 
and especially by the Dissenters, who now united with the mem- 
bers of the Established Church. James had recently courted the 
Dissenters, not wishing to oppose too many enemies at a time. 
He had conferred on them many indulgences, and had elevated 
some of them to high positions, with the hope that they would 



CHAP. XV.] PROSECUTION OF THE SEVEN BISHOPS. 225 

unite with him in breaking down the Establishment. But, while 
some of the more fanatical were gained over, the great body were 
not so easily deceived. They knew well enough that, after 
crushing the Church of England, he would crush them. And 
they hated Catholicism and tyranny more than they did Episco- 
pacy, in spite of their many persecutions. Some of the more 
eminent of the Dissenters took a noble stand, and their conduct was 
fully appreciated by the Established clergy. For the first time, 
since the accession of Elizabeth, the Dissenters and the Episcopa- 
lians treated each other with that courtesy and forbearance which 
enlightened charity demands. The fear of a common enemy 
united them. But time, also, had, at length, removed many of 
their mutual asperities. 

Nothing could exceed the vexation of James when he found 
that not only the clergy had disobeyed his orders, but that the 
Seven Bishops were sustained by the nation. When this was dis- 
covered, he should have yielded, as Elizabeth would have done. 
But he was a Stuart. He was a bigoted, and self-willed, and in- 
fatuated monarch, marked out most clearly by Providence for 
destruction. He resolved to prosecute the bishops for a libel, and 
their trial and acquittal are among the most interesting events of 
an inglorious reign. They were tried at the Court of the King's 
Bench. The most eminent lawyers in the realm were employed 
as their counsel, and all the arts of tyranny were resorted to by the 
servile judges who tried them. But the jury rendered a verdict 
of acquittal, and never, within man's memory, were such shouts 
and tears of joy manifested by the people. Even the soldiers, 
whom the king had ordered to Hounslow Heath to overawe Lon- 
don, partook of the enthusiasm and triumph of the people. All 
classes were united in expressions of joy that the tyrant for once 
was baffled. The king was indeed signally defeated ; but his 
defeat did not teach him wisdom. It only made him the more 
resolved to crush the liberties of the Church, and the liberties of the 
nation. But it also arrayed against him all classes and all parties 
of Protestants, who now began to form alliances, and devise 
measures to hurl him from his throne. Even the very courts 
which James had instituted to crush liberty proved refractory. 
Sprat, the servile Bishop of Rochester, sent him his resignation as 



226 TYRANNY AND INFATUATION OF JAMES. [CHAP. XV. 

one of the LorcL Commissioners. The very meanness of his 
spirit and laxity of his principles made his defection peculiarly 
alarming, and the unblushing Jeffreys now began to tremble. 
The Court of High Commission shrunk from a conflict with the 
Established Church, especially when its odious character was 
loudly denounced by all classes in the kingdom — even by some 
of the agents of tyranny itself. The most unscrupulous slaves 
of power showed signs of uneasiness. 

But James resolved to persevere. The sanction of a parlia- 
ment was necessary to his system, but the sanction of a free 
parliament it was impossible to obtain. He resolved to bring 
together, by corruption and intimidation, by violent exertions of 
prerogative, by fraudulent distortions of law, an assembly which 
might call itself a parliament, and might be willing to register any 
edict he proposed. And, accordingly, every placeman, from the 
highest to the lowest, was made to understand that he must support 
the throne or lose his office. He set himself vigorously to pack a 
parliament. A committee of seven privy counsellors sat at 
Whitehall for the purpose of regulating the municipal corporations. 
Father Petre was made a privy councillor. Committees, after the 
model of the one at Whitehall, were established in all parts of the 
realm. The lord lieutenants received written orders to go down to 
their respective counties, and superintend the work of corruption 
and fraud. But half of them refused to perform the ignominious 
work, and were immediately dismissed from their posts, which 
were posts of great honor and consideration. Among these were 
the great Earls of Oxford, Shrewsbury, Dorset, Pembroke, 
Rutland, Bridgewater, Thanet, Northampton, Abingdon, and 
Gainsborough, whose families were of high antiquity, wealth, and 
political influence. Nor could those nobles, who consented to con- 
form to the wishes and orders of the king, make any progress in their 
counties, on account of the general opposition of the gentry. The 
county squires, as a body, stood out in fierce resistance. They 
refused to send up any men to parliament who would vote away 
the liberties and interests of the nation. The justices and deputy 
lieutenants declared that they would sustain, at all hazard, the 
Protestant religion. And these persons were not odious repub- 
licans, but zealous royalists, now firmly united and resolved to 
oppose unlawful acts, though commanded by the king. 



CHAP. XV.] ORGANIZED OPPOSITION. 227 

James and his ministers next resolved to take away the power 
of the municipal corporations. The boroughs were required to 
surrender their charters. But a great majority firmly refused to 
part with their privileges. They were prosecuted and intimidated, 
but still they held out. Oxford, by a vote of eighty to two, voted 
to defend its franchises. Other towns did the same. Meanwhile, 
all the public departments were subjected to a strict inquisition ; 
and all, who would not support the policy of the king, were turned 
out of office, and among them were some who had been heretofore 
the zealous servants of the crown. 

It was now full time for the organization of a powerful confedera- 
cy against the king. It was obvious, to men of all parties, and all 
ranks, that he meditated the complete subversion of English liberties. 
The fundamental laws of the kingdom had been systematically 
violated. The power of dispensing with acts of parliament had 
been strained, so that the king had usurped nearly all legislative 
authority. The courts of justice had been filled with unscrupulous 
judges, who were ready to obey all the king's injunctions, whether 
legal or illegal. Roman Catholics had been elevated to places of 
dignity in the Established Church. An infamous and tyrannical 
Court of High Commission had been created ; persons, who could 
not legally set foot in England, had been placed at the head of col- 
leges, and had taken their seat at the royal council-board. Lord 
lieutenants of counties, and other servants of the crown, had been 
dismissed for refusing to obey illegal commands ; the franchises of 
almost every borough had been invaded ; the courts of justice were 
venal and corrupt ; an army of Irish Catholics, whom the nation 
abhorred, had been brought over to England ; even the sacred right 
of petition was disregarded, and respectful petitioners were treated 
as criminals ; and a free parliament was prevented from assembling. 

Under such circumstances, and in view of these unquestioned 
facts, a great eonspiracy was set on foot to dethrone the king and 
overturn the hateful dynasty. 

Among the conspirators were some of the English nobles, the 
chief of whom was the Earl of Devonshire, and one of the 
leaders of the Whig party. Shrewsbury and Danby also joined 
them, the latter nobleman having been one of the most zealous 
advocates of the doctrine of passive obedience which many of the 



228 WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE. [CHAP. XV. 



4, 



High Churchmen and Tories had defended in the reign of Charles II. 
It was under his administration, as prime minister, that a law had 
been proposed to parliament to exclude all persons from office who 
refused to take an oath, declaring that they thought resistance in 
all cases unlawful. Compton, the Bishop of London, who had 
been insolently treated by the court, joined the conspirators, whose 
designs were communicated to the Prince of Orange by Edward 
Russell and Henry Sydney, brothers of those two great political 
martyrs who had been executed in the last reign. The Prince of 
Orange, who had married a daughter of James II., agreed to 
invade England with a well-appointed army. 

William of Orange was doubtless the greatest statesman and 
warrior of his age, and one of the ablest men who ever wore a 
crown. He was at the head of the great Protestant party in Eu- 
rope, and was the inveterate foe of Louis XIV. When a youth, 
his country had been invaded by Louis, and desolated and aban- 
doned to pillage and cruelty. It was amid unexampled calamities, 
when the population were every where flying before triumphant 
armies, and the dikes of Holland had been opened for the ravages 
of the sea in order to avoid the more cruel ravages of war, that 
William was called to be at the head of affairs. He had scarcely 
emerged from boyhood ; but his boyhood was passed in scenes of 
danger and trial, and his extraordinary talents were most preco- 
ciously developed. His tastes were warlike ; but he was a war- 
rior who fought, not for the love of fighting, not for military glory, 
but to rescue his country from a degrading yoke, and to secure 
the liberties of Europe from the encroachments of a most ambi- 
tious monarch. Zeal for those liberties was the animating princi- 
ple of his existence ; and this led him to oppose so perseveringly 
the policy and enterprises of the French king, even to the disad- 
vantage of his native countiy and the country which adopted him. 

William was ambitious, and did not disdain the overtures which 
the discontented nobles of England made to him. Besides, his 
wife, the Princess Mary, was presumptive heir to the crown before 
the birth of the Prince of Wales. The eyes of the English nation 
had long been fixed upon him as their deliverer from the tyranny 
of James. He was a sincere Protestant, a bold and enterprising 
genius, and a consummate statesman. But he delayed taking any 



CHAP. XV.] CRITICAL CONDITION OF JAMES. 229 

decisive measures until affairs were ripe for his projects — until the 
misgovernment and encroachments of James drove the nation to 
the borders of frenzy. He then obtained the consent of the 
States General for the meditated invasion of England, and made 
immense preparations, which, however, were carefully concealed 
from the spies and agents of James. They did not escape, how- 
ever, the scrutinizing and jealous eye of Louis XIV., who remon- 
strated with James on his blindness and self-confidence, and offered 
to lend him assistance. But the infatuated monarch would not 
believe his danger, and rejected the proffered aid of Louis with a 
spirit which ill accorded with his former servility and dependence. 
Nor was he aroused to a sense of his danger until the Declaration 
of William appeared, setting forth the tyrannical acts of James, 
and supposed to be written by Bishop Burnet, the intimate friend 
of the Prince of Orange. Then he made haste to fit out a fleet ; 
and thirty ships of the line were put under the command of Lord 
Dartmouth. An army of forty thousand men — the largest that 
any king of England had ever commanded — was also sent to the 
seaboard ; a force more than sufficient to repel a Dutch invasion. 

At the same time, the king made great concessions. He abol- 
ished the Court of High Commission. He restored the charter 
of the city of London. He permitted the Bishop of Winchester, 
as visitor of Magdalen College, to make any reforms he pleased. 
He would not, however, part with an iota of his dispensing power, 
and still hoped to rout William, and change the religion of his 
country. But all his concessions were too late. Whigs and Tories, 
Dissenters and Churchmen, were ready to welcome their Dutch 
deliverer. Nor had James any friends on whom he could rely. 
His prime minister, Sunderland, was in treaty with the conspira- 
tors, and waiting to betray him. Churchill, who held one of the 
highest commissions in the army, and who was under great obli- 
gations to the king, was ready to join the standard of William. 
Jeffreys, the lord chancellor, was indeed true in his allegiance, but 
his crimes were past all forgiveness by the nation ; and even had 
he rebelled, — and he was base enough to do so, — his services 
would have been spurned by William and all his adherents. 

On the 29th of October, 1688, the armament of William put 
to sea ; but the ships had scarcely gained half the distance to Eng- 
20 



230 INVASION OF ENGLAND BY "WILLIAM. [CHAP. XV. 



4 



land, when they were dispersed and driven back to Holland by a 
violent tempest. The hopes of James revived ; but they were soon 
dissipated. The fleet of William, on the 1st of November, again 
put to sea. It was composed of more than six hundred vessels, 
five hundred of which were men of war, and they were favored 
by auspicious gales. The same winds which favored the Dutch 
ships retarded the fleet of Dartmouth. On the 5th of November, 
the troops of William disembarked at Brixam, near Torbay in 
Devonshire, without opposition. On the 6th, he advanced to New- 
ton Abbot, and, on the 9th, reached Exeter. He was cordially 
received, and magnificently entertained. He and his lieutenant- 
general, Marshal Schomberg, one of the greatest commanders in 
Europe, entered Exeter together in the grand military procession, 
which was like a Roman triumph. Near him also was Bentinck, 
his intimate friend and counsellor, the founder of a great ducal 
family. The procession marched to the splendid Cathedral, the 
Te Deum was sung, and Burnet preached a sermon. 

Thus far all things had been favorable, and William was fairly 
established on English ground. Still his affairs were precarious, 
and James's condition not utterly hopeless or desperate. In spite 
of the unpopularity of the king, his numerous encroachments, and 
his disaffected army, the enterprise of William was hazardous. 
He was an invader, and the slightest repulse would have been 
dangerous to his interests. James was yet a king, and had the 
control of the army, the navy, and the treasury. He was a legiti- 
mate king, whose claims were undisputed. And he was the father 
of a son, and that son, notwithstanding the efforts of the Protestants 
to represent him as a false heir, was indeed the Prince of Wales. 
William had no claim to the throne so long as that prince was 
living. Nor had the nobles and gentry flocked to his standard as 
he had anticipated. It was nearly a week before a single person 
of rank or consequence joined him. Devonshire was in Derby- 
shire, and Churchill had still the confidence of his sovereign. 
The forces of the king were greatly superior to his own. And 
James had it in his power to make concessions which would have 
satisfied a great part of the nation. 

But William had not miscalculated. He had profoundly studied 
the character of James, and the temper of the English. He knew 



CHAP. XV.] FLIGHT OF THE KING. 231 

that a fatal blindness and obstinacy had been sent upon him, and 
that he never would relinquish his darling scheme of changing 
the religion of the nation ; and he knew that the nation would 
never acquiesce in that change ; that Popery was hateful in their 
sight. He also trusted to his own good sword, and to fortunate 
circumstances. 

And he was not long doomed to suspense, which is generally so 
difficult to bear. In a few days, Lord Cornbury, colonel of a regi- 
ment, and son of the Earl of Clarendon, and therefore a relative 
of James himself, deserted. Soon several disaffected nobles joined 
him in Exeter. Churchill soon followed, the first general officer 
that ever in England abandoned his colors. The Earl of Bath, 
who commanded at Plymouth, placed himself, in a few days, at 
the prince's disposal, with the fortress which he was intrusted to 
guard. His army swelled in numbers and importance. Devon- 
shire raised the standard of rebellion at Chatsworth. London was 
in a ferment. James was with his army at Salisbury, but gave the 
order to retreat, not daring to face the greatest captain in Europe. 
Soon after, he sent away the queen and the Prince of Wales to 
France, and made preparations for his own ignominious flight — 
the very thing his enemies desired, for his life was in no danger, 
and his affairs even then might have been compromised, in spite 
of the rapid defection of his friends, and the advance of William, 
with daily augmenting forces, upon London. On the 11th of 
December, the king fled from London, with the intention of em- 
barking at Sheerness, and was detained by the fishermen of the 
coast ; but, by an order from the Lords, was set at liberty, and 
returned to the capital. William, nearly at the same time, reached 
London, and took up his quarters at St. James's Palace. It is need- 
less to add, that the population of the city were friendly to his 
cause, and that he was now virtually the king of England. It is 
a satisfaction also to add, that the most infamous instrument of 
royal tyranny was seized in the act of flight, at Wapping, in the 
mean disguise of a sailor. He was discovered by the horrible 
fierceness of his countenance. Jeffreys was committed to the 
Tower ; and the Tower screened him from a worse calamity, for 
the mob would have torn him in pieces. Catholic priests were 
also arrested, and their chapels and houses destroyed. 



232 CONSUMMATION OF THE REVOLUTION. [CHAP. XV. 

Meanwhile parliament assembled and deliberated on the state 
of affairs. Many propositions were made and rejected. The king 
fled a second time, and the throne was declared vacant. But the 
crown was not immediately offered to the Prince of Orange', although 
addresses were made to him as a national benefactor. Many were 
in favor of a regency. Another party was for placing the Princess 
Mary on the throne, and giving to William, during her life, the 
title of king, and such a share of the administration as she chose 
to give him. 

But William had risked every thing for a throne, and nothing 
less than the crown of England would now content him. He gave 
the convention to understand that, much as he esteemed his wife, 
he would never accept a subordinate and precarious place in her 
government ; " that he would not submit to be tied to the apron- 
strings of the best of wives ; " that, unless he were offered the 
crown for life, he should return to Holland. 

It was accordingly settled by parliament that he should hold the 
regal dignity conjointly with his wife, but that the whole power 
of the government should be placed in his hands. And the Prin- 
cess Mary willingly acceded, being devoted to her husband, and 
unambitious for herself. 

Thus was consummated the English Revolution of 1688, blood- 
less, but glorious. A tyrant was ejected from an absolute throne, 
and a noble and magnanimous prince reigned in his stead, after 
having taken an oath to observe the laws of the realm — an oath 
which he never violated. Of all revolutions, this proved the most 
beneficent. It closed the long struggle of one hundred and fifty 
years. Royal prerogative bowed before the will of the people, 
and true religious and civil liberty commenced its reign. The 
Prince of Orange was called to the throne by the voice of the 
nation, as set forth in an instrument known as the Declaration of 
Right. This celebrated act of settlement recapitulated the crimes 
and errors of James, and merely asserted the ancient rights and 
liberties of England — that the dispensing power had no legal ex- 
istence ; that no money could be raised without grant -of parlia- 
ment ; and that no army could be kept up in time of peace without 
its consent ; and it also asserted the right of petition, the right of 
electors to choose their representatives freely, the right of parlia- 



CHAP. XV.] DECLARATION OF EIGHT. 233 

ment to freedom of debate, and the right of the nation to a pure and 
merciful administration of justice. No new rights were put forth, 
but simply the old ones were reestablished. William accepted the 
crown on the conditions proposed, and swore to rule by the laws. 
" Not a single flower of the crown," says Macaulay, " was touched. 
Not a single new right was given to the people. The Declaration 
of Right, although it made nothing law which was not law before, 
contained the germ of the law which gave religious freedom to the 
Dissenters ; of the law which secured the independence of judges ; 
of the law which limited the duration of parliaments ; of the law 
which placed the liberty of the press under the protection of juries ; 
of the law which abolished the sacramental test ; of the law which 
relieved the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities ; of the law 
which reformed the representative system ; of every good law which 
has been passed during one hundred and sixty years ; of eveiy 
good law which may hereafter, in the course of ages, be found 
necessary to promote the public weal, and satisfy the demands of 
public opinion." 

References. — Macaulay's, Hume's, Hallam's, and Lingard's Histo- 
ries of England. Mackintosh's Causes of the Revolution of 1688. Fox's 
History of the Reign of James — a beautiful fragment. Burnet's History 
of his Own Times. Neal's History of the Puritans. Life and Times of 
Richard Baxter. Southey's Life of Bunyan. Memoir of George Fox, by 
Marsh. Life of AVilliam Penn. Chapters on religion, science, and the 
condition of the people, in the Pictorial History of England. Russell's 
Modern Europe. Woolrych's Life of Judge Jeffreys. 

20* 



234 Louis xiv. [chap. xvi. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

LOUIS XIV. 

We turn now from English affairs to contemplate the reign of 
Louis XIV. — a man who filled a very large space in the history 
of Europe during the seventeenth century. Indeed, his reign 
forms an epoch of itself, not so much from any impulse he gave to 
liberty or civilization, but because, for more than half a century, 
he was the central mover of European politics. His reign com- 
memorates the triumph, in France, of despotic principles, the 
complete suppression of popular interests, and almost the absorp- 
tion of national interests in his own personal aggrandizement. It 
commemorates the ascendency of fashion, and the great refinement 
of material life. The camp and the court of Louis XIV. in- 
gulphed all that is interesting in the history of France during the 
greater part of the seventeenth century. He reigned seventy-two 
years, and, in his various wars, a million of men are supposed to 
have fallen victims to his vain-glorious ambition. His palaces 
consumed the treasures which his wars spared. He was viewed 
as a sun of glory and power, in the light of which all other lights 
were dim. Philosophers, poets, prelates, generals, and statesmen, 
during his reign, were regarded only as his satellites. He was the 
central orb around which every other light revolved, and to con- 
tribute to his glory all were supposed to be born. He was, most 
emphatically, the state. He was France. A man, therefore, 
who, in the eye of contemporaries, was so grand, so rich, so pow- 
erful, and so absolute, claims a special notice. It is the province 
of history to record great influences, whether they come from the 
people, from great popular ideas, from literature and science, or 
from a single man. The lives of individuals are comparatively 
insignificant in the histoiy of the United States ; but the lives of 
such men as Caesar, Cromwell, and Napoleon, furnish veiy great 
subjects for the pen of the philosophical historian, since great 
controlling influences emanated from them, rather than from the 
people whom they ruled. 



CHAP. XVI.] HIS POWER AND RESOURCES. 235 

Louis XIV. was not a great general, like Henry IV., nor a great 
statesman, like William III., nor a philosopher, like Frederic the 
Great, nor a universal genius, like Napoleon ; but his reign filled 
the eyes of contemporaries, and circumstances combined to make 
him the absolute master of a great empire. Moreover, he had 
sufficient talent and ambition to make use of fortunate opportu- 
nities, and of the resources of his kingdom, for his own aggran- 
dizement. But France, nevertheless, was sacrificed. The French 
Revolution was as much the effect of his vanity and egotism, as 
his own power was the fruit of the policy of Cardinals Richelieu 
and Mazarin. By their labors in the cause of absolutism, he came 
in possession of armies and treasures. But armies and treasures 
were expended in objects of vain ambition, for the gratification of 
selfish pleasures, for expensive pageants, and for gorgeous palaces. 
These finally embarrassed the nation, and ground it down to the 
earth by the load of taxation, and maddened it by the prospect of 
ruin, by the poverty and degradation of the people, and, at the same 
time, by the extravagance and insolence of an overbearing aristoc- 
racy. The aristocracy formed the glory and pride of the throne, 
and both nobles and the throne fell, and great was the fall thereof. 

Our notice of Louis XIV. begins, not with his birth, but at the 
time when he resolved to be his own prime minister, on the death 
of Cardinal Mazarin, (1661.) 

Louis XIV. was then twenty-three years of age — frank, beauti- 
ful, imperious, and ambitious. His education had been neglected, 
but his pride and selfishness had been stimulated. During his 
minority, he had been straitened for money by the avaricious 
cardinal ; but avaricious for his youthful master, since, at his 
death, besides his private fortune, which amounted to two 
hundred millions of livres, he left fifteen millions of livres, 
not specified in his will, which, of course, the king seized, and 
thus became the richest monarch of Europe. He was married, 
shortly before the death of Mazarin, to the Infanta Maria Theresa, 
daughter of Philip IV., King of Spain. But, long before his mar- 
riage, he had become attached to Mary de Mancini, niece of Maza- 
rin, who returned his love with passionate ardor. She afterwards 
married Prince Colonna, a Roman noble, and lived a most aban- 
doned life. 



236 HABITS AXD PLEASURES OF LOUIS. [CHAP. XVI. 

The enormous wealth left by Cardinal Mazaria was, doubtless, 
one motive which induced Louis XIY., though only a young man 
of twentv-three, to be his own prime minister. Henceforth, to 
his death, all his ministers made their regular reports to him, and 
none were permitted to go beyond the limits which he prescribed 
to them. 

He accepted, at first, the ministers whom the dying cardinal 
had recommended. The most prominent of these were Le Tellier, 
De Lionne, and Fouquet. The last was intrusted with the public 
chest, who found the means to supply the dissipated young mon- 
arch with all the money he desired for the indulgence of his 
expensive tastes and ruinous pleasures. 

The thoughts and time of the king, from the death of Mazarin, 
for six or seven years, were chiefly occupied with his pleasures. 
It was then that the court of France was so debauched, splendid, 
and far-famed. It was during this time that the king was ruled 
by La Valliere, one of the most noted of all his favorites, a woman 
of considerable beauty and taste, and not so unprincipled as royal 
favorites generally have been. She was created a duchess, and 
her children were legitimatized, and also became dukes and 
princes. Of these the king was very fond, and his love for them 
survived the love for their unfortunate mother, who, though beau- 
tiful and affectionate, was not sufficiently intellectual to retain the 
affections with which she inspired the most selfish monarch of his 
age. She was supplanted in the king's affections by Madame de 
Montespan, an imperious beaut}-, whose extravagances and follies 
shocked and astonished even the most licentious court in Europe ; 
and La Valliere, broken-hearted, disconsolate, and mortified, 
sought the shelter of a Carmelite convent, in which she dragged 
out thirty-six melancholy and dreary years, amid the most rigor- 
ous severities of self-inflicted penance, in the anxious hope of that 
heavenly mansion where her sins would be no longer remembered, 
and where the weary would be at rest. 

It was during these years of extravagance and pleasure that 
Versailles attracted the admiring gaze of Christendom, the most 
gorgeous palace which the world has seen since the fall of Baby- 
lon. Amid its gardens and groves, its parks and marble halls, 
did the modern Nebuchadnezzar revel in a pomp and grandeur 



CHAP. XVI.] HIS MILITARY AMBITION. 237 

unparalleled in the history of Europe, surrounded by eminent 
prelates, poets, philosophers, and statesmen, and all that rank and 
beauty had ennobled throughout his vast dominions. Intoxicated 
by their united flatteries, by all the incense which sycophancy, 
carried to a science, could burn before him, he almost fancied 
himself a deity, and gave no bounds to his self-indulgence, his 
vanity, and his pride. Every thing was subordinate to his pleasure 
and his egotism — an egotism alike regardless of the tears of dis- 
carded favorites, and the groans ofhis overburdened subjects. 

But Louis, at last, palled with pleasure, was aroused from 
the festivities of Versailles by dreams of military ambition. He 
knew nothing of war, of its dangers, its reverses, or of its ruinous 
expenses; but he fancied it would be a beautiful sport for a 
wealthy and absolute monarch to engage in the costly game. He 
cast his eves on Holland, a state extremely weak in land forces, 
and resolved to add it to the great kingdom over which he ruled. 

The only power capable of rendering effectual assistance to 
Holland, when menaced by Louis XIV., was England; but Eng- 
land was ruled by Charles II., and all he cared for were his 
pleasures and independence from parliamentary control. The 
French king easily induced him to break his alliance with the 
Dutch by a timely bribe, while, at the same time, he insured the 
neutrality of Spain, by inflaming the hereditary prejudices of the 
Spanish court against the Low Countries. 

War, therefore, without even a decent pretence, and without 
provocation, was declared against Holland, with a view of annex- 
ing the Low Countries to France. 

Before the Dutch were able to prepare for resistance, Louis XI \ . 
appeared on the banks of the Rhine with an army of one hundred 
and twenty thousand, marshalled by such able generals as Luxem- 
bourg Conde, and Turenne. The king commanded in person, and 
with all the pomp of an ancient Persian monarch, surrounded with 
women and nobles. Without any adequate force to resist him, his 
march could not but be triumphant. He crossed the Rhine, — an 
exploit much celebrated, by his flatterers, though nothing at all ex- 
traordinary, — and, in the course of a few weeks, nearly all the 
United Provinces had surrendered to the royal victor. The reduc- 
tion of Holland and Zealand alone was necessary to crown his en- 



238 "WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE. [CHAP. XVI. 

terprise with complete, success. But he wasted time in vain parade 
at Utrecht, where he held his court, and where his splendid army 
revelled in pleasure and pomp. Amsterdam alone, amid the gen- 
eral despondency and consternation which the French inundation 
produced, was true to herself, and to the liberties of Holland ; and 
this was chiefly by means of the gallant efforts of the Prince of 
Orange. 

At this time, (1672,) he was twenty-two years of age, and had 
received an excellent education, and shown considerable military 
abilities. In consequence of his precocity of talent, his unquestioned 
patriotism, and the great services which his family had rendered to 
the state, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of the 
republic, and was encouraged to aspire to the office of stadtholder, 
the highest in the commonwealth. And his power was much in- 
creased after the massacre of the De Witts — the innocent victims 
of popular jealousy, who, though patriotic and illustrious, inclined 
to a different policy than what the Orange party advocated. 
William advised the States to reject with scorn the humiliating 
terms of peace which Louis XIV. offered, and to make any sacri- 
fice in defence of their veiy last ditch. The heroic spirit which 
animated his bosom he communicated to his countrymen, on the 
borders of despair, and in the prospect of national ruin ; and so 
great was the popular enthusiasm, that preparations were made for 
fifty thousand families to fly to the Dutch possessions in the East 
Indies, and establish there a new empire, in case the)'' were over- 
whelmed by their triumphant enemy. 

Never, in the history of war, were such energies put forth as 
by the Hollanders in the hour of their extremity. They opened 
their dikes, and overflowed their villages and their farms. They 
rallied around the standard of their heroic leader, who, with 
twenty-two thousand men, kept the vast armies of. Conde and 
Turenne at bay. Providence, too, assisted men who were willing 
to help themselves. The fleets of their enemies were dispersed 
by storms, and their armies were driven back by the timely 
inundation. 

The heroism of William called forth universal admiration. 
Louis attempted to bribe him, and offered him the sovereignty of 
Holland, which offer he unhesitatingly rejected. He had seen the 



CHAP. XVI.] SECOND INVASION OF HOLLAND. 239 

lowest point in the depression of his country, and was confident 
of ultimate success. 

The resistance of Holland was unexpected, and Louis, wearied 
with the campaign, retired to Versailles, to be fed with the incense 
of his flatterers, and to publish the manifestoes of his glory and 
success. 

The states of Europe, jealous of the encroachments of Louis, 
at last resolved to come to the assistance of the struggling republic 
of Holland. Charles II. ingloriously sided with the great despot 
of Europe ; but the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of Bran- 
denburg, and the King of Spain declared war against France. 
Moreover, the Dutch gained some signal naval battles. The cele- 
brated admirals De Ruyter and Van Tromp redeemed the ancient 
glories of the Dutch flag. The French were nearly driven out of 
Holland ; and Charles II., in spite of his secret treaties with Louis, 
was compelled to make peace with the little state which had 
hitherto defied him in the plenitude of his power. 

But the ambitious King of France was determined not to be 
baffled in his scheme, since he had all the mighty resources of 
his kingdom at his entire disposal, and was burning with the 
passion of military aggrandizement. So he recommenced prepa- 
rations for the conquest of Holland on a greater scale than ever, 
and assembled four immense armies. Conde led one against 
Flanders, and fought a bloody but indecisive battle with the Prince 
of Orange, in which twelve thousand men were killed on each side. 
Turenne commanded another on the side of Germany, and pos- 
sessed himself of the Palatinate, gained several brilliant successes, 
but disgraced them by needless cruelties. Manheim, and numerous 
towns and villages, were burnt, and the country laid waste and 
desolate. The elector was so overcome with indignation, that he 
challenged the French general to single combat, which the great 
marshal declined. 

Louis himself headed a third army, and invaded Franche Comte, 
which he subdued in six weeks. The fourth army was sent to the 
frontiers of Roussillon, but effected nothing of importance. 

This great war was prosecuted for four years longer, in which 
the contending parties obtained various success. The only 
decisive effect of the contest was to reduce the strength of all the 



240 DUTCH WAR. [CHAP. XVI. 

contending powers. Some great battles were fought, but Holland 
still held out with inferior forces. Louis lost the great Turenne, 
who was killed on the eve of a battle with the celebrated Monte- 
cuculi, who commanded the German armies ; but, in a succeeding 
campaign, this loss was compensated by the surrender of Valen- 
ciennes, by the victories of Luxembourg over the Prince of Orange, 
and by another treaty of peace with Charles II. 

At last, all the contending parties were exhausted, and Louis was 
willing to make terms of peace. He had not reduced Holland, 
but, on account of his vast resources, he had obtained considerable 
advantages. The treaty of Nimeguen, in 1678, secured to him 
Franche Comte, which he had twice conquered, and several 
important cities and fortresses in Flanders. He considerably 
extended his dominions, in spite of a powerful confederacy, and 
only retreated from the field of triumph to meditate more gigantic 
enterprises. 

For nine years, Europe enjoyed a respite from the horrors of 
war, during which Louis XIV. acted like a universal monarch. 
During these nine years, he indulged in his passion of palace build- 
ing, and surrounded himself with every pleasure which could 
intoxicate a mind on which, already, had been exhausted all the 
arts of flattery, and all the resources of wealth. 

The man to whom Louis was most indebted for the means to 
prosecute his victories and build his palaces, was Colbert, minister 
of finance, who succeeded Fouquet. France was indebted to this 
able and patriotic minister for her richest manufactures of silks, 
laces, tapestries, and carpets, and for various internal improvements. 
He founded the Gobelin tapestries ; erected the Royal Library, the 
colonnade of the Louvre, the Royal Observatory, the Hotel of the 
Invalids, and the palaces of the Tuileries, Vincennes, Meudon, 
and Versailles. He encouraged all forms of industry, and pro- 
tected the Huguenots. But his great services were not fully 
appreciated by the king, and he was obnoxious to the nobility, who 
envied his eminence, and to the people, because he desired the 
prosperity of France more than the gratification of their pleasures. 
He was succeeded by Louvois, who long retained a great ascend- 
ency by obsequious attention to all the king's wishes. 

At this period, the reigning favorite at court was Madame de 



CHAP. XVI.] MADAME MONTESPAN. 241 

Montespan — the most infamous and unprincipled, but most witty and 
brilliant of all the king's mistresses, and the haughtiest woman of 
her age. Her tastes were expensive, and her habits extravagant and 
luxurious. On her the sovereign showered diamonds and rubies. 
He could refuse her nothing. She received so much from him, that 
she could afford to endow a convent — the mere building of which 
cost one million eight hundred thousand livres. Her children were 
legitimatized, and declared princes of the blood. Through her 
the royal favors flowed. Ambassadors, ministers, and even 
prelates, paid their court to her. On her the reproofs of Bossuet 
fell without effect. Secure in her ascendency over the mind of 
Louis, she triumphed over his court, and insulted the nation. But, 
at last, he grew weary of her, although she remained at court 
eighteen years, and she was dismissed from Versailles, on a pen- 
sion of a sum equal to six hundred thousand dollars a year. She 
lived twenty-two years after her exile from court, and in great 
splendor, sometimes hoping to regain the ascendency she had 
once enjoyed, and at others in those rigorous penances which 
her church inflicts as the expiation for sin. To the last, however, 
she was haughty and imperious, and kept up the vain etiquette of 
a court. Her husband, whom she had abandoned, and to whom, 
after her disgrace, she sought to be reconciled, never would hear 
her name mentioned ; and the king, whom, for nearly twenty 
years, she had enthralled, heard of her death with indifference, 
as he was starting for a hunting excursion. " Ah, indeed," said 
Louis XIV., " so the marchioness is dead ! I should have thought 
that she would have lasted longer. Are you ready, M. de la 
Rochefoucauld ? I have no doubt that, after this last shower, the 
scent will lie well for the dogs. Let us be off at once." 

As the Marchioness de Montespan lost her power over the royal 
egotist, Madame de Maintenon gained hers. She was the wife 
of the poet Scarron, and was first known to the king as the 
governess of the children of Montespan. She was an estimable 
woman on the whole, very intellectual, very proper, very artful, and 
very ambitious. No person ever had so great an influence over 
Louis XIV. as she ; and hers was the ascendency of a strong mind 
over a weak one. She endeavored to make peace at court, and 
to dissuade the king from those vices to which he had so long been 
21 



242 MADAME DE MAINTENON. [CHAP. XVI. 

addicted. And shg partially reclaimed him, although, while her 
counsels were still regarded, Louis was enslaved by Madame de 
Fontanges — a luxurious beauty, whom he made a duchess, and on 
whom he squandered the revenues of a province. But her reign 
was short. Mere physical charms must soon yield to the superior 
power of intellect and wit, and, after her death, the reign of 
Madame de Maintenon was complete. As the king could not live 
without her, and as she refused to follow the footsteps of her pred- 
ecessors, the king made her his wife. And she was worthy of 
his choice; and her influence was, on the whole, good, although 
she befriended the Jesuits, and prompted the king to many acts 
of religious intolerance. It was chiefly through her influence, 
added to that of the Jesuits, that the king revoked the edict of 
Nantes, and its revocation was attended by great sufferings and 
privations among the persecuted Huguenots. He had, on ascending 
the throne, in 1643, confirmed the privileges of the Protestants; 
but, gradually, he worried them by exactions and restraints, and, 
finally, in 1685, by the revocation of the edict which Henry IV. 
had passed, he withdrew his protection, and subjected them to a 
more bitter persecution than at any preceding period. All the 
Protestant ministers were banished, or sent to the galleys, and the 
children of Protestants were taken from their parents, and com- 
mitted to the care of their nearest Catholic relations, or such 
persons as judges appointed. All the terrors of military execution, 
all the artifices of priestcraft, were put forth to make converts ; 
and such as relapsed were subjected to cruel torments. A 
twentieth part of them were executed, and the remainder hunted 
from place to place. By these cruelties, France was deprived of 
nearly six hundred thousand of the best people in the land — 
a great misfortune, since they contributed, in their dispersion and 
exile, to enrich, by their agriculture and manufactures, the coun- 
tries to which they fled. 

From this period of his reign to his death, Louis XIV. was a 
religious bigot, and the interests of the Roman Church, next to the 
triumph of absolutism, became the great desire of his life. He 
was punctual and rigid in the outward ceremonials of his religion ; 
and professed to regret the follies and vices of his early life. 
Through the influence of his confessor, the Jesuit La Chaise, and 



CHAP. XVI.] LEAGUE OF AUGSBURG. 243 

his wife, Madame de Maintenon, he sent away Montespan from his 
court, and discouraged those gayeties for which it had once been 
distinguished. But he was always fond of ceremony of all kinds, 
and the etiquette of his court was most irksome and oppressive, 
and wearied Madame de Maintenon herself, and caused her to ex- 
claim, in a letter to her brother, " Save those who fill the highest 
stations, I know of none more unfortunate than those who envy 
them." 

The favorite minister of the king at this time was Louvois, a 
very able but extremely prodigal man, who plunged Louis XIV. 
into innumerable expenses, and encouraged his taste both for 
palaces and war. It was probably through his intrigues, in order 
to make himself necessary to the king, that a general war again 
broke out in Europe. 

In 1687 was formed the famous League of Augsburg, by which 
the leading princes of Europe united in a great confederacy to 
suppress the power and encroachments of the French king. Lou- 
vois intrigued to secure the election of the Cardinal de Furstem- 
berg to the archbishopric of Cologne, in opposition to the interests 
of Bavaria, the natural ally of France, conscious that, by so doing, 
he must provoke hostilities. But this act was only the occasion, 
not the cause, of war. Louis had enraged the Protestant world by 
his persecution of the Huguenots. He had insulted even the pope 
himself by sending an ambassador to Rome, with guards and 
armed attendants equal to an army, in order to enforce some 
privileges which it was not for the interest or the dignity of the 
pope to grant ; he had encouraged the invasion of Germany by 
the Turks ; he had seized Strasburg, the capital of Alsace ; he 
bombarded Genoa, because they sold powder to the Algerines, and 
compelled the doge to visit him as a suppliant ; he laid siege to 
some cities which belonged to Spain ; and he prepared to annex 
the Low Countries to his dominions. Indeed, he treated all other 
powers as if he were the absolute monarch of Europe, and fear and 
jealousy united them against them. Germany, Spain, and Holland, 
and afterwards England, Denmark, Sweden, and Savoy, cooperated 
together to crush the common enemy of European liberties. 

Louis made enormous exertions to resist this powerful confed- 
eracy. Four hundred thousand men were sent into the field, 



244 OPPOSING ARMIES AND GENERALS. [CHAP. XVI. 

divided into four armies. Two of these were sent into Flanders, 
one into Catalonia, and one into Germany, which laid waste the 
Palatinate with fire and sword. Louvois gave the order, and Louis 
sanctioned it, which was executed with such unsparing cruelty that 
all Europe was filled with indignation and defiance. 

The forces of Louis were immense, but those of the allies were 
greater. The Spaniards, Dutch, and English, had an army of 
fifty thousand men in Flanders, eleven thousand of whom were 
commanded by the Earl of Marlborough. The Germans sent 
three more armies into the field ; one commanded by the Elector 
of Bavaria, on the Upper Rhine ; another by the Duke of Lor- 
raine, on the Middle Rhine ; and a third by the Elector of Bran- 
denburg, on the Lower Rhine ; and these, in the first campaign, 
obtained signal successes. The next year, the Duke of Savoy 
joined the allies, whose army was commanded by Victor Amadeus ; 
but he was beaten by Marshal Catinat, one of the most distin- 
guished of the French generals. Luxembourg also was successful 
in Flanders, and gained the great battle of Charleroi over the 
Germans and Dutch. The combined fleet of the English and 
Dutch was also defeated by the French at the battle of Beachy 
Head. In the next campaign, Prince Eugene and the Duke of 
Schomberg distinguished themselves in checking the victorious 
career of Catinat ; but nothing of importance was effected. The 
following spring, William III. and Louis XIV., the two great heads 
of the contending parties, took the field themselves ; and Louis, 
with the aid of Luxembourg, took Namur, in spite of the efforts of 
William to succor it. Some other successes were gained by the 
French, and Louis retired to Versailles to celebrate the victories 
of his generals. The next campaign witnessed another splendid 
victory over William and the allies, by Luxembourg, at Neerwin- 
clen, when twelve thousand men were killed ; and also another, 
by Catinat, at Marsaglia, in Italy, over the Duke of Savoy. The 
military glory of Louis was now at its height ; but, in the cam- 
paign of 1694-95, he met with great reverses. Luxembourg, the 
greatest of his generals, died. The allies retook Huy and Na- 
mur, and the French king, exhausted by the long war, was forced 
to make peace. The treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, secured the 
tranquillity of Europe for four years — long enough only for the 



CHAP. XVI.] WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. 245 

contending parties to recover their energies, and prepare for 
a more desperate contest. Louis XIV., however, now acted on 
the defensive. The allied powers were resolved on his complete 
humiliation. 

War broke out again in 1701, and in consequence of the acces- 
sion of Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., to the throne of Spain. 
This great war of the Spanish Succession, during which Marlbor- 
ough so greatly distinguished himself, claims a few explanatory 
remarks. 

Charles II., King of Spain, and the last of the line of the Aus- 
trian princes, being without an heir, and about to die, selected as 
his successor Leopold of Bavaria, a boy five years of age, whose 
grandmother was Maria Theresa. But there were also two other 
claimants — the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., whose 
claim rested in being the grandson of Maria Theresa, daughter of 
Philip IV., and sister of Charles II., and the Emperor of Germany, 
whose mother was the daughter of Philip III. The various Euro- 
pean states looked with extreme jealousy on the claims of the 
Emperor of Germany and the Duke of Anjou, because they 
feared that the balance of power would be seriously disturbed if 
either an Austrian or a Bourbon prince became King of Spain. 
They, therefore, generally supported the claims of the Bavarian 
prince, especially England and Holland. 

But the Prince of Bavaria suddenly died, as it was supposed by 
poison, and Louis XIV. so successfully intrigued, that his grandson 
was nominated by the Spanish monarch as heir to his throne. 
This incensed Leopold II. of Germany, and especially William III., 
who was resolved that the house of Bourbon should be no further 
aggrandized. 

On the accession of the Duke of Anjou to the Spanish throne, 
in 1701, a grand alliance was formed, headed by the Emperor of 
Germany and the King of England, to dethrone him. Louis XIV. 
long hesitated between his ambition and the interests of his king- 
dom ; but ambition triumphed. He well knew that he could only 
secure a crown to his grandson by a desperate contest with indig- 
nant Europe. Austria, Holland, Savoy, and England were arrayed 
against France. And this war of the Spanish Succession was the 
longest, the bloodiest, and the most disastrous war in which Louis 
21* 



246 DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. [CHAP. XVI. 

was ever engaged. 4 It commenced the last year of the reign of 
William III., and lasted thirteen years. 

The great hero of this war was doubtless the Duke of Marl- 
borough, although Prince Eugene gained with him as imperishable 
glories as war can bestow. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, 
cannot be said to be one of those geniuses who have impressed 
their minds on nations and centuries ; but he was a man who gave 
great lustre to the British name, and who attained to a higher pitch 
of military fame than any general whom England has produced 
since Oliver Cromwell, with the exception of Wellington. 

He was born in 1650, of respectable parents, and was page of 
honor to the Duke of York, afterwards James II. While a mere 
boy, his bent of mind was discernible, and he solicited and ob- 
tained from the duke an ensign's commission, and rapidly passed 
through the military grades of lieutenant, captain, major, and 
colonel. During the infamous alliance between Louis XIV. and 
Charles II., he served under Marshal Turenne, and learned from 
him the art of war. But he also distinguished himself as a diplo- 
matic agent of Charles II., in his intrigues with Holland and 
France. Before the accession of James II., he was created a 
Scottish peer, by the title of Baron Churchill. He followed his 
royal patron in his various peregrinations, and, when he succeeded 
to the English throne, he was raised to an English peerage. But 
Marlborough deserted his patron on the landing of William III., 
and was made a member of his Privy Council, and lord of the 
bed-chamber. Two days before the coronation of William, he was 
made Earl of Marlborough ; but was not intrusted with as high 
military command as his genius and services merited, William 
being apparently jealous of his fame. On the accession of Anne, 
hie was sent to the Continent with the supreme command of the 
English armies in the war with Louis about the Spanish Succession. 
His services in the campaign of 1702 secured a dukedom, and 
deservedly, for he contended against great obstacles — against the 
obstinacy and stupidity of the Dutch deputies ; against the timidity 
of the English government at home ; and against the veteran 
armies of Louis, led on by the celebrated Villars. But neither the 
campaigns of 1702 or 1703 were marked by any decisive battles. 
In 1704 was fought the celebrated battle of Blenheim, by which 



CHAP. XVI.] BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. 247 

the French power was crippled, and the hopes of Louis pros- 
trated. 

The campaign of 1703 closed disastrously for the allies. Eu- 
rope was never in greater peril. Bavaria united with France and 
Spain to crush Austria. The Austrians had only twenty thousand 
men, while the Bavarians had forty-five thousand men in the centre 
of Germany, and Marshal Tallard was posted, with forty-five 
thousand men, on the Upper Rhine. Marshal Villeroy opposed 
Marlborough in the Netherlands. 

But Marlborough conceived the bold project of marching his 
troops to the banks of the Danube, and there uniting with the Im- 
perialists under Prince Eugene, to cut off the forces of the enemy 
before they could unite. So he left the Dutch to defend themselves 
against Villeroy, rapidly ascended the Rhine, before any of the 
enemy dreamed of his designs. From Mentz, he proceeded with 
forty thousand men to Heidelberg, and from Heidelberg to Dona- 
worth, on the Danube, where his troops, which had effected a junc- 
tion with the Austrians and Prussians, successfully engaged the 
Bavarians. But the Bavarians and the French also succeeded in 
uniting their forces ; and both parties prepared for a desperate 
conflict. There were about eighty thousand men on each side. 
The French and Bavarians were strongly intrenched at the village 
of Blenheim ; and Marlborough, against the advice of most of his 
generals, resolved to attack their fortified camp before it was reen- 
forced by a large detachment of troops which Villeroy had sent. 
" I know the danger," said Marlborough ; " but a battle is abso- 
lutely necessary." He was victorious. Forty thousand of the 
enemy were killed or taken prisoners ; Tallard himself was taken, 
and every trophy was secured which marks a decisive victory. 
By this great victory, the Emperor of Austria was relieved from 
his fears, the Hungarians were overawed, Bavaria fell under the 
sway of the emperor, and the armies of Louis were dejected and 
discouraged. Marlborough marched back again to Holland with- 
out interruption, was made a prince of the empire, and received 
pensions and lands from the English government, which made him 
one of the richest and greatest of the English nobility. The palace 
of Blenheim was built, and he received the praises and plaudits of 
the civilized world. 



248 EXERTIONS AND NECESSITIES OF LOUIS. [CHAP. XVI. 

The French were hardly able to cope with Marlborough during 
the next campaign, but rallied in 1706, during which year the 
great battle of Ramillies was fought, and won by Marlborough. 
The conquest of Brabant, and the greater part of Spanish Flan- 
ders, resulted from this victory ; and Louis, crippled and humili- 
ated, made overtures of peace. Though equitable, they were 
rejected ; the allies having resolved that no peace should be made 
with the house of Bourbon while a prince of that house continued 
to sit upon the throne of Spain. Louis appealed now, in his dis- 
tress, to the national honor, sent his plate to the mint, and resolved, 
in his turn, to contend, to the last extremity, with his enemies, 
whom success had intoxicated. 

The English, not content with opposing Louis in the Netherlands 
and in Germany, sent their armies into Spain, also, who, united 
with the Austrians, overran the country, and nearly completed its 
conquest. One of the most gallant and memorable exploits of the 
war was the siege and capture of Barcelona by the Earl of 
Peterborough, the city having made one of the noblest and most 
desperate defences since the siege of Numantia. 

The exertions of Louis were equal to his necessities ; and, in 
1707, he was able to send large armies into the field. None of 
his generals were able to resist the Duke of Marlborough, who 
gained new victories, and took important cities ; but, in Spain, the 
English met with reverses. In 1708, Louis again offered terms 
of peace, which were again rejected. His country was impov- 
erished, his resources were exhausted, and a famine carried away 
his subjects. He agreed to yield the whole Spanish monarchy to 
the house of Austria, without any equivalent ; to cede to the 
emperor his conquests on the Rhine, and to the Dutch the great 
cities which Marlborough had taken ; to acknowledge the Elector 
of Brandenburg as King of Prussia, and Anne as Queen of Eng- 
land ; to remove the Pretender from his dominions ; to acknowl- 
edge the succession of the house of Hanover ; to restore every 
thing required by the Duke of Savoy ; and agree to the cessions 
made to the King of Portugal. 

And yet these conditions, so honorable and advantageous to the 
allies, were rejected, chiefly through the influence of Marlborough, 
Eugene, and the pensionary Heinsius, who acted from entirely 



CHAP. XVI.] TREATY OF UTRECHT. 249 

selfish motives. Louis was not permitted to cherish the most remote 
hope of peace .without surrendering the strongest cities of his 
dominions as pledges for the entire evacuation of the Spanish mon- 
archy by his grandson. This he would not agree to. He threw 
himself, in his distress, upon the loyalty of his people. Their pride 
and honor were excited; and, in spite of all their misfortunes, they 
prepared to make new efforts. Again were the French defeated at 
the great battle of Malplaquet, when twelve thousand men con- 
tended on each side ; and again did Louis sue for peace. Again 
were his overtures rejected, and again did he rally his exhausted 
nation. Some victories in Spain were obtained over the confed- 
erates ; but the allies gradually were hemming him around, and 
the king-hunt was nearly up, when unexpected dissensions among 
the allies relieved him of his enemies. 

These dissensions were the struggles between the Whigs and 
Tories in England ; the former maintaining that no peace should 
be made; the latter, that the war had been carried far enough, 
and was prolonged only to gratify the ambition of Marlborough. 
The great general, in consequence, lost popularity ; and the 
Tories succeeded in securing a peace, just as Louis was on the 
verge of ruin. Another campaign, had the allies been united, 
would probably have enabled Marlborough to penetrate to Paris. 
That was his aim ; that was the aim of his party. But the nation 
was weary of war, and at last made peace with Louis. By the 
treaty of Utrecht, (1713,) Philip V. resumed the throne of Spain, 
but was compelled to yield his rights to the crown of France in 
case of the death of a sickly infant, the great-grandson of Louis 
XIV., who was heir apparent to the throne ; but, in other respects, 
the terms were not more favorable than what Louis had offered in 
1706, and very inadequate to the expenses of the war. The allies 
should have yielded to the overtures of Louis before, or should 
have persevered. But party spirit, and division in the English 
cabinet and parliament, prevented the consummation which the 
Whigs desired, and Louis was saved from further humiliation and 
losses. 

But his power was broken. He was no longer the autocrat of 
Europe, but a miserable old man, who had lived to see irreparable 
calamities inflicted on his nation, and calamities in consequence 



250 LAST DAYS OF LOUIS. [CHAP. XVI. 

of his ambition. Hj^ latter years were melancholy. He survived 
his son and his grandson. He saw himself an object of reproach, 
of ridicule, and of compassion. He sought the religious consola- 
tion of his church, but was the victim of miserable superstition, and 
a tool of the Jesuits. He was ruled by his wife, the widow of the 
poet Scarron, whom his children refused to honor. His last days 
were imbittered by disappointments and mortifications, disasters in 
war, and domestic afflictions. No man ever, for a while, enjoyed 
a prouder preeminence. No man ever drank deeper of the bitter 
cup of disappointed ambition and alienated affections. No man 
ever more fully realized the vanity of this world. None of the 
courtiers, by whom he was surrounded, he could trust, and all his 
experiences led to a disbelief in human virtue. He saw, with 
shame, that his palaces, his wars, and his pleasures, had consumed 
the resources of the nation, and had sowed the seeds of a fearful 
revolution. He lost his spirits ; his temper became soured ; mis- 
trust and suspicion preyed upon his mind. His love of pomp 
survived all his other weaknesses, and his court, to the last, was 
most rigid in its wearisome formalities. But the pageantry of 
Versailles was a poor antidote to the sorrows which bowed his 
head to the ground, except on those great public occasions when 
his pride triumphed over his grief. Every day, in his last years, 
something occurred to wound his vanity, and alienate him from 
all the world but Madame de Maintenon, the only being whom he 
fully trusted, and who did not deceive him. Indeed, the humiliated 
monarch was an object of pity as well as of reproach, and his 
death was a relief to himself, as well as to his family. He died 
in 1715, two years after the peace of Utrecht, not much regretted 
by the nation. 

Louis XIV. cannot be numbered among the monsters of the 
human race who have worn the purple of royalty. His chief and 
worst vice was egotism, which was born with him, which was 
cultivated by all the influences of his education, and by all the 
circumstances of his position. This absorbing egotism made him 
insensible to the miseries he inflicted, and cherished in his soul the 
notion that France was created for him alone. His mistresses, 
his friends, his wives, his children, his court, and the whole nation, 
were viewed only as the instruments of his pride and pleasure. 



CHAP. XVI.] HIS CHARACTER. 251 

All his crimes and blunders proceeded from his extraordinary 
selfishness. If we could look on him without this moral taint, 
which corrupted and disgraced him, we should see an indulgent 
father and a generous friend. He attended zealously to the duties 
of his station, and sought not to shake off his responsibilities. He 
loved pleasure, but, in its pursuit, he did not forget the affaire of 
the realm. He rewarded literature, and appreciated merit. He 
honored the institutions of religion, and, in his latter days, was 
devoted to its duties, so far as he understood them. He has been 
foolishly panegyrized, and as foolishly censured. Still his reign 
was baneful, on the whole, especially to the interests of enlightened 
Christianity and to popular liberty. He was a bigoted Catholic, 
and sought to erect, on the ruins of states and empires, an absolute 
and universal throne. He failed ; and instead of bequeathing to 
his successors the power which he enjoyed, he left them vast debts, 
a distracted empire, and a discontented people. He bequeathed 
to France the revolution which hurled her monarch from his 
throne, but which was overruled for her ultimate good. 



Preferences. — Louis XIV. et son Siecle. Voltaire's and Miss Par- 
doe's Histories of the Reign of Louis XIV. James's Life of Louis XIV. 
Memoires du Due de St. Simon. The Abbe MiLLot's History. D'Anque- 
til's Louis XIV., sa Cour, et le Regent. Sismondi's History of France, 
Crowe's and Rankin's Histories of France. Lord Mahon's War of the 
Spanish Succession. Temple's Memoirs. Coxe's Life of Marlborough, 
Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Sevigne's Letters. Rus- 
sell's Modern Europe. The late history by Miss Pardoe is one of the 
most interesting ever written. It may have too much gossip for what is 
called the " dignity of history; " but that fault, if fault it be, has been 
made by Macaulay also, and has been condemned, not unfrequently, by 
those most incapable of appreciating philosophical history. 



252 WILLIAM AND MARY. [CHAP. XVII. 

4 

CHAPTER XVII. 

WILLIAM AND MARY. 

From Louis XIV. we turn to consider the reign of his illustrious 
rival, William III., King of England, who enjoyed the throne 
conjointly with Mary, daughter of James II. 

The early life and struggles of this heroic prince have been 
already alluded to, in the two previous chapters, and will not be 
further discussed. On the 12th day of February, 1689, he arrived 
at Whitehall, the favorite palace of the Stuart kings, and, on the 
11th of April, he and Mary were crowned in Westminster Abbey. 

Their reign is chiefly memorable for the war with Louis XIV., 
the rebellion in Ireland, fomented by the intrigues of James II., 
and for the discussion of several great questions pertaining to the 
liberties and the prosperity of the English nation, questions in rela- 
tion to the civil list, the Place Bill, the Triennial Bill, the liberty 
of the press, a standing army, the responsibility of ministers, the 
veto of the crown, the administration of Ireland, the East India 
Company, the Bank of England, and the funded debt. These 
topics make the domestic history of the country, especially in a 
constitutional point of view, extremely important. 

The great struggle with Louis XIV. has already received all the 
notice which the limits of this work will allow, in which it was 
made to appear that, if Louis XIV. was the greater king, William 
III. was the greater man ; and, although his military enterprises 
were, in one sense, unsuccessful, since he did not triumph in 
splendid victories, still he opposed successfully what would have 
been, without his heroism, an overwhelming torrent of invasion 
and conquest, in consequence of vastly superior forces. The 
French king was eventually humbled, and the liberties of conti- 
nental Europe were preserved. 

Under the wise, tolerant, and liberal administration of William, 
the British empire was preserved from disunion, and invaluable 
liberties and privileges were guaranteed. 



CHAP. XVII.] IRISH REBELLION. : 253 

Scarcely was he seated on the throne, which his wife inherited 
from the proud descendants of the Norman Conqueror, when a 
rebellion in Ireland broke out, and demanded his presence in that 
distracted and unfortunate country. 

The Irish people, being Roman Catholics, had sympathized with 
James II. in all his troubles, and were resolved to defend his cause 
against a Calvinistic king. In a short time after his establishment 
at St. Germain's, through the bounty of the French king, he began 
to intrigue with the disaffected Irish chieftains. The most noted 
of these was Tyrconnel, who contrived to deprive the Protestants 
of Lord Mountjoy, their most trusted and able leader, by sending 
him on a mission to James II., by whose influence he was con- 
fined, on his arrival at Paris, in the Bastile. Tyrconnel then pro- 
ceeded to disarm the Protestants, and recruit the Catholic army, 
which was raised in two months to a force of forty thousand men, 
burning to revenge their past injuries, and recover their ancient 
possessions and privileges. James II. was invited by the army to 
take possession of his throne. He accepted the invitation, and, 
early in 1689, made his triumphal entry into Dublin, and was 
received with a pomp and homage equal to his dignity. But James 
did not go to Ireland merely to enjoy the homage and plaudits of 
the Irish people, but to defend the last foothold which he retained 
as King of England, trusting that success in Ireland would event- 
ually restore to him the throne of his ancestors. And he was 
cordially, but not powerfully, supported by the French king, who 
was at war with England, and who justly regarded Ireland as the 
most assailable part of the British empire. 

The Irish parliament, in the interest of James, passed an act of 
attainder against all Protestants who had assisted William, among 
whom were two archbishops, one duke, seventeen earls, eighteen 
barons, and eighty-three clergymen. By another act, Ireland was 
made independent of England. The Protestants were eveiy where 
despoiled and insulted. 

But James was unequal to the task he had assumed, incapable 
either of preserving Ireland or retaking England. He was irres- 
olute and undecided. He could not manage an Irish House of 
Commons any better than he could an English one. He debased 
the coin, and resorted to irritating measures to raise money. 
22 



254 KING JAMES IN IRELAND. [CHAP. XVII. 

At last he conchfded to subdue the Protestants in Ulster, and 
advanced to lay siege to Londonderry, upon which depended the 
fate of the north of Ireland. It was bravely defended by the 
inhabitants, and finally relieved by the troops sent over from Eng- 
land under the command of Kirke — the same who inflicted the 
cruelties in the west of England under James II. But William 
wanted able officers, and he took them indiscriminately from all 
parties. Nine thousand people miserably perished by famine and 
disease in the town, before the siege was raised, one of the most 
memorable in the annals of war. 

Ulster was now safe, and the discomfiture of James was rapidly 
effected. Old Marshal Schomberg was sent into Ireland with 
sixteen thousand veteran troops, and, shortly after, William him- 
self (June 14, 1690) landed at Carrickfergus, near Belfast, with 
additional men, who swelled the Protestant army to forty thousand. 

The contending forces advanced to the Conflict, and on the 1st 
of July was fought the battle of the Boyne, in which Schomberg 
was killed, but which resulted in the defeat of the troops of 
James II. The discomfited king fled to Dublin, but quitted it as 
soon as he had entered it, and embarked hastily at Waterford for 
France, leaving the Earl of Tyrconnel to contend with vastly 
superior forces, and to make the best terms in his power. 

The country was speedily subdued, and all the important cities 
and fortresses, one after the other, surrendered to the king. Lim- 
erick held out the longest, and made an obstinate resistance, but 
finally yielded to the conqueror ; and with its surrender termi- 
nated the final efforts of the old Irish inhabitants to regain the 
freedom which they had lost. Four thousand persons were out- 
lawed, and their possessions confiscated. Indeed, at different times, 
the whole country has been confiscated, with the exception of the 
possessions of a few families of English blood. In the reign of 
James I., the whole province of Ulster, containing three millions 
of acres, was divided among the new inhabitants. At the restora- 
tion, eight millions of acres, and, after the surrender of Limerick, 
one million more of acres, were confiscated. During the reign of 
William and Mary, the Catholic Irish were treated with extreme 
rigor, and Ireland became a field for place-hunters. All important 
or lucrative offices in the church, the state, and the army, were 



CHAP. XVII.] FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. 255 

filled with the needy dependants of the great Whig families. 
Injustice to the nation was constantly exercised, and penal laws 
were imposed by the English parliament, and in reference to mat- 
ters which before came under the jurisdiction of the Irish parlia- 
ment. But, with all these rigorous measures, Ireland was still 
ruled with more mildness than at any previous period in its his- 
tory, and no great disturbance again occurred until the reign of 
George III. 

But the reign of William III., however beneficial to the liberties 
of England and of Europe, was far from peaceful. Apart from 
his great struggle with the French king, his comfort and his com- 
posure of mind were continually disturbed by domestic embarrass- 
ments, arising from the jealousies between the Whigs and Tories, 
the intrigues of statesmen with the exiled family, and discussions 
in parliament in reference to those great questions which attended 
the settlement of the constitution. A bill was passed, called the 
Place Bill, excluding all officers of the crown from the House of 
Commons, which showed the jealousy of the people respecting 
royal encroachments. A law also was passed, called the Triennial 
Bill, which limited the duration of parliament to three years, but 
which, in a subsequent reign, was repealed, and one substituted 
which extended the duration of a parliament to seven years. An 
important bill was also passed which regulated trials in case of 
treason, in which the prisoner was furnished with a copy of the 
indictment, with the names and residences of jurors, with the privi- 
lege of peremptory challenge, and with full defence of counsel. 
This bill guaranteed new privileges and rights to prisoners. 

The great question pertaining to the Liberty of the Press was 
discussed at this time — one of the most vital questions which 
affect the stability of government on the one side, and the liberties 
of the people on the other. So desirable have all governments 
deemed the control of the press by themselves, that parliament, 
when it abolished the Star Chamber, in the reign of Charles I., still 
assumed its powers respecting the licensing of books. Various 
modifications were, from time to time, made in the laws pertaining 
to licensing books, until, in the reign of William, the liberty of 
the press was established nearly upon its present basis. 

William, in general, was in favor of those movements which 



256 ACT OF SETTLEMENT DEATH OF WILLIAM III. [cHAP. XVII. 

proved beneficial in*after times, or which the wisdom of a subse- 
quent age saw fit to adopt. Among these was the union of Eng- 
land and Scotland, which he recommended. Under his auspices, 
the affairs of the East India Company were considered and new 
charters granted ; the Bank of England was erected ; benevolent 
action for the suppression of vice and for the amelioration of the 
condition of the poor took place ; the coinage was adjusted ; and 
financial experiments were made. 

The crown, on the whole, lost power during this reign, which 
was transferred to the House of Commons. The Commons ac- 
quired the complete control of the purse, which is considered para- 
mount to all other authority. Prior to the Revolution, the supply 
for the public service was placed at the disposal of the sovereign, 
but the definite sum of seven hundred thousand pounds, yearly, 
was placed at the disposal of William, to defray the expense of 
the civil list and his other expenses, while the other contingent 
expenses of government, including those for the support of the 
army and navy, were annually appropriated by the Commons. 

The most important legislative act of this reign was the Act of 
Settlement, March 12, 1701, which provided that England should 
be freed from the obligation of engaging in any war for the 
defence of the foreign dominions of the king ; that all succeeding 
kings must be of the communion of the Church of England; that 
no succeeding king should go out of the British dominions without 
consent of parliament ; that no person in office, or pensioner, 
should be a member of the Commons ; that the religious liberties 
of the people should be further secured ; that the judges should hold 
office during good behavior, and have their salaries ascertained ; 
and that the succession to the throne should be confined to Prot- 
estant princes. 

King William reigned in England thirteen years, with much 
ability, and sagacity, and prudence, and never attempted to sub- 
vert the constitution, for which his memory is dear to the English 
people. But most of his time, as king, was occupied in directing 
warlike operations on the Continent, and in which he showed 
a great jealousy of the genius of Marlborough, whose merits he 
nevertheless finally admitted. He died March 8, 1702, and was 
buried in the sepulchre of the kings of England. 



CHAP. XVII.] CHARACTER OF WILLIAM. 257 

Notwithstanding the animosity of different parties against Wil- 
liam III., public opinion now generally awards to him, considering 
the difficulties with which he had to contend, the first place among 
the English kings. He had many enemies and many defects. 
The Jacobites hated him because " he upset their theory of the 
divine rights of kings; the High Churchmen because he was in- 
different to the forms of church government ; the Tories because 
he favored the Whigs; and the Republicans because he did not 
again try the hopeless experiment of a republic." He was not a 
popular idol, in spite of his great services and great qualities, 
because he was cold, reserved, and unyielding ; because he dis- 
dained to flatter, and loved his native better than his adopted 
country. But his faults were chiefly offences against good man- 
ners, and against the pi'ejudices of the nation. He distrusted 
human nature, and disdained human sympathy. He was am- 
bitious, and his ambition was allied with selfishness. He per- 
mitted the slaughter of the De Witts, and never gave Marlborough 
a command worthy of his talents. He had no taste for literature, 
wit, or the fine arts. His favorite tastes were hunting, gardening, 
and upholstery. That he was, however, capable of friendship, 
is attested by his long and devoted attachment to Bentinck, whom 
he created Earl of Portland, and splendidly rewarded with rich 
and extensive manors in every part of the land. His reserve and 
coldness may in part be traced to his profound knowledge of 
mankind, whom he feared to trust. But if he was not beloved 
by the nation, he secured their eternal respect by being the first 
to solve- the problem of constitutional monarchy, and by success- 
fully ruling, at a very critical period, the Dutch, the English, the 
Scotch, and the Irish, who had all separate interests and jealousies ; 
by yielding, when in possession of great power, to restraints he did 
not like ; and by undermining the intrigues and power of So 
mighty an enemy of European liberties as Louis XIV. His 
heroism shone brilliantly in defeat and disaster, and his courage 
and exertion never flagged when all Europe desponded, and 
when he himself labored under all the pains and lassitude of 
protracted disease. He died serenely, but hiding from his attend- 
ants, as he did all his days, the profoundest impressions which 
agitated his earnest and heroic soul. 
22* 



258 SIR ISAAC NEWTON AND JOHN LOCKE. [CHAP. XVII. 

Among the grear* men whom he encouraged and rewarded, 
may be mentioned the historian Burnet, whom he made Bishop of 
Salisbury, and Tillotson and Tennison, whom he elevated to 
archiepiscopal thrones. Dr. South and Dr. Bentley also adorned 
this age of eminent divines. The great poets of the period were 
Prior, Dryden, Swift, and Pope, who, however, are numbered 
more frequently among the wits of the reign of Anne. Robert 
Boyle distinguished himself for experiments in natural science, and 
zeal for Christian knowledge ; and Christopher Wren for his 
genius in architectural art. But the two great lights of this reign 
were, doubtless, Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke, to whom the 
realm of natural and intellectual philosophy is more indebted than 
to any other men of genius from the time of Bacon. The discov- 
eries of Newton are scarcely without a parallel, and he is generally 
regarded as the greatest mathematical intellect that England has 
produced. To him the world is indebted for the binomial theorem, 
discovered at the age of twenty-two ; for the invention of fluxions ; 
for the demonstration of the law of gravitation ; and for the dis- 
covery of the different refrangibility of rays of light. His treatise 
on Optics and his Principia, in which he brought to light the new 
theoiy of the universe, place him at the head of modern philoso- 
phers — on a high vantage ground, to which none have been 
elevated, of his age, with the exception of Leibnitz and Galileo. 
But his greatest glory was his modesty, and the splendid tribute he 
rendered to the truths of Christianity, whose importance and 
sublime beauty he was ever mosLproud to acknowledge in an age 
of levity and indifference. 

John Locke is a name which almost exclusively belongs to the 
reign of William III., and he will also ever be honorably men- 
tioned in the constellation of the very great geniuses and Christians 
of the world. His treatises on Religious Toleration are the most 
masterly ever written, while his Essay on the Human Understand- 
ing is a great system of truth, as complete, original, and logical, 
in the department of mental science, as was the system of Calvin 
in the realm of theology. Locke's Essay has had its enemies and 
detractors, and, while many eminent men have dissented from it, 
it nevertheless remains, one of the most enduring and proudest 
monuments of the immortal and ever-expanding intellect of man. 



CHAP. XVII.] ANNE. 259 

On the death of William III., (1702,) the Princess Anne, daughter 
of James II., peaceably ascended the throne. She was thirty-seven 
years of age, a woman of great weaknesses, and possessing but 
few interesting qualities. Nevertheless, her reign is radiant with 
the glory of military successes, and adorned with eveiy grace of 
fancy, wit, and style in literature. The personal talent and exclu- 
sive ambition of William suppressed the national genius ; but the 
incapacity of Anne gave scope for the commanding abilities of 
Marlborough in the field, and Godolphin in the cabinet. 

The memorable events connected with her reign of twelve 
years, were, the war of the Spanish succession, in which Marlbo- 
rough humbled the pride of Louis XIV. ; the struggles of the 
Whigs and Tories ; the union of Scotland with England ; the dis- 
cussion and settlement of great questions pertaining to the consti- 
tution, and the security of the Protestant religion ; and the impulse 
which literature received from the constellation of learned men 
who were patronized by the government, and who filled an unusual 
place in public estimation. 

In a political point of view, this reign is but the continuation of 
the reign of William, since the -same objects were pursued, the 
same policy was adopted, and the same great characters were 
intrusted with power. The animating object of William's life 
was the suppression of the power of Louis XIV. ; and this object 
was never lost sight of by the English government under the 
reign of Anne. 

Hence the great political event of the reign was the war of the 
Spanish succession, which, however, pertains to the reign of Louis 
as well as to that of Anne. It was during this war that the great 
battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet attested the genius 
of the greatest military commander that England had ever sent 
into the field. It was this war which exhausted the energies and 
resources of all the contending states of Europe, and created a 
necessity for many years of slumbering repose. It was this war 
which completed the humiliation of a monarch who aspired to the 
sovereignty of Europe, which preserved the balance of power, and 
secured the liberties of Europe. Yet it was a war which laid the 
foundation of the national debt, inflamed the English mind with 
a mad passion for military glory, which demoralized the nation, 



260 THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. [cHAP. XVII. 

and fostered those international jealousies and enmities which are 
still a subject of reproach to the two most powerful states of 
Europe. This war made England a more prominent actor on 
the arena of European strife, and perhaps contributed to her po- 
litical aggrandizement. The greatness of the British empire 
begins to date from this period, although this greatness is more 
to be traced to colonial possessions, manufactures, and commercial 
wealth, than to the victories of Marlborough. 

It will ever remain an open question whether or not it was wise 
in the English nation to continue so long the struggle with Louis 
XIV. In a financial and material point of view, the war proved 
disastrous. But it is difficult to measure the real greatness of a 
country, and solid and enduring blessings, by pounds, shillings, and 
pence. All such calculations, however statistically startling, are 
erroneous and deceptive. The real strength of nations consists in 
loyalty, patriotism, and public spirit ; and no sacrifices can be too 
great to secure these unbought blessings — " this cheap defence." 
If the victories of Marlborough secured these, gave dignity to the 
British name, and an honorable and lofty self-respect to the Eng- 
lish people, they were not dearly purchased. But the settlement 
of these questions cannot be easily made. 

As to the remarkable genius of the great man who infused 
courage into the English mind, there can be no question. Marl- 
borough, in spite of his many faults, his selfishness and parsimony, 
his ambition and duplicity, will ever enjoy an enviable fame. He 
was not so great a moral hero as William, nor did he contend against 
such superior forces as the royal hero. But he was a great hero, 
nevertheless. His glory was reached by no sudden indulgence of 
fortune, by, no fortunate movements, by no accidental circum- 
stances. His fame was progressive. He never made a great 
mistake ; he never lost the soundness of his judgment. No suc- 
cess unduly elated him, and no reverses discouraged him. He 
never forgot the interests of the nation in his own personal annoy- 
ances or enmities. He was magnanimously indulgent to those 
Dutch deputies who thwarted his measures, criticized his plans, 
and lectured him on the art of war. The glory of his country was 
the prevailing desire of his soul. He was as great in diplomacy 
and statesmanship as on the field of Blenheim. He ever sacri- 



CHAP. XVII.] CHARACTER OF MARLBOROUGH. 261 

ficed his feelings as a victorious general to his duty as a subject. 
His sagacity was only equalled by his prudence and patience, and 
these contributed, as well as his personal bravery, to his splendid 
successes, which secured for him magnificent rewards — palaces 
and parks, peerages, and a nation's gratitude and praise. 

But there is a limit to all human glory. Marlborough was under* 
mined by his political enemies, and he himself lost the confidence 
of the queen whom he had served, partly by his own impe- 
rious conduct, and partly from the overbearing insolence of his 
wife. From the height of popular favor, he descended to the 
depth of popular hatred. He was held up, by the sarcasm of the 
writers whom he despised, to derision and obloquy ; was accused 
of insolence, cruelty, ambition, extortion, and avarice, discharged 
from his high offices, and obliged to seek safety by exile. He 
never regained the confidence of the nation, although, when he 
died, parliament decreed him a splendid funeral, and a grave in 
Westminster Abbey. 

In private life, he was amiable and kind ; was patient under con- 
tradiction, and placid in manners ; had great self-possession, and 
extraordinary dignity. His person was beautiful, and his address 
commanding. He was feared as a general, but loved as a man. 
He never lost his affections for his home, and loved to idolatry his 
imperious wife, his equal, if not superior, in the knowledge of 
human nature. These qualities as a man, a general, and a 
statesman, in spite of his defects, have immortalized his name, 
and he will, for a long time to come, be called, and called with 
justice, the great Duke of Marlborough. 

Scarcely less than he, was Lord Godolphin, the able prime 
minister of Anne, with whom Marlborough was united by family 
ties, by friendship, by official relations, and by interest. He was 
a Tory by profession, but a Whig in his policy. He rose with 
Marlborough, and fell with him, being an unflinching advocate for 
the prosecution of the war to the utmost limits, for which his 
o-overnment was distasteful to the Tories. His life was not 
stainless; but, in an age of corruption, he _ ably administered the 
treasury department, and had control of unbounded wealth, 
without becoming rich — the highest praise which can ever be 
awarded to a minister of finance. It was only -through the 



262 "WHIGS AND TORIES. [cHAP. XVII. 

cooperation of this sagacious and far-sighted statesman that Marl- 
borough himself was enabled to prosecute his brilliant military 
career. 

It was during his administration that party animosity was at its 
height — the great struggle which has been going on, in England, 
for nearly two hundred years, between the Whigs and Tories. 
These names originated in the reign of Charles II., and were terms 
of reproach. The court party reproached their antagonists with 
their affinity to the fanatical conventicle rs in Scotland, who were 
known by the name of the Whigs ; and the country party pretended 
to find a resemblance between the courtiers and the Popish banditti 
of Ireland, to whom the appellation of Tory was affixed. The 
High Church party and the advocates of absolutism belonged to 
the Tories ; the more liberal party and the advocates of constitu- 
tional reform, to the Whigs. The former were conservative, the 
latter professed a sympathy with improvements. But the leaders 
of both parties were among the greatest nobles in the realm, and 
probably cared less for any great innovation than they did for 
themselves. These two great parties, in the progress of society, 
have changed their views, and the opinions once held by the 
Whigs were afterwards adopted by the Tories. On the whole, 
the Whigs were in advance in liberality of mind, and in enlightened 
plans of government. But both parties, in England, have ever 
been aristocratic, and both have felt nearly an equal disgust of 
popular influences. Charles and James sympathized with the 
Tories more than with the Whigs ; but William III. was supported 
by the Whigs, who had the ascendency in his reign. Queen 
Anne was a Tory, as was to be expected from a princess of the 
house of Stuart ; but, in the early part of her reign, was obliged 
to yield to the supremacy of the Whigs. The advocates for war 
were Whigs, and those who desired peace were Tories. The 
Whigs looked to the future glory of the country ; the Tories, to the 
expenses which war created. The Tories at last got the ascendency, 
and expelled Godolphin, Marlborough, and Sunderland from power. 

Of the Toiy leaders, Harley, (Earl of Oxford,) St. John, (Lord 
Bolingbroke,) the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke of Ormond, 
the Earl of Rochester, and Lord Dartmouth, were the most 
prominent ; but this Tory party was itself divided, in consequence 



CHAP. XVII.] DR. HENRY SACHEVERELL. 263 

of jealousies between the chiefs, the intrigues of Harley, and the 
measureless ambition of Bolingbroke. Under the ascendency of 
the Tories the treaty of Utrecht was made, now generally con- 
demned by historians of both Whig and Tory politics. It was 
disproportioned to the success of the war, although it secured the 
ends of the grand alliance. 

One of the causes which led to the overthrow of the Whigs 
was the impeachment and trial of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, an 
event which excited intense interest at the time, and, though insig- 
nificant in itself, touched some vital principles of the constitution. 

This divine was a man of mean capacity, and of little reputation 
for learning or virtue. He had been, during the reign of William, 
an outrageous Whig ; but, finding his services disregarded, he 
became a violent Tory. By a sort of plausible effrontery and 
scurrilous rhetoric, he obtained the applause of the people, and the 
valuable living of St. Saviour, Southwark. The audacity of his 
railings against the late king and the revolution at last attracted 
the notice of government ; and for two sermons which he printed, 
and in which he inculcated, without measure, the doctrine of passive 
obedience, consigned Dissenters to eternal damnation, and abused 
the great principle of religious toleration, he was formally im- 
peached. All England was excited by the trial. The queen 
herself privately attended, to encourage a man who was persecuted 
for his loyalty, and persecuted for defending his church. The 
finest orators and lawyers of the day put forth all their energies. 
Bishop Atterbury wrote for Sacheverell his defence, which was 
endorsed by a conclave of High Church divines. The result of the 
trial was the condemnation of the doctor, and with it the fall of his 
adversaries. He was suspended for three years, but his defeat 
was a triumph. He was received, in college halls and private 
mansions, with the pomp of a sovereign and the reverence of a 
saint. His sentence made his enemies unpopular. The great 
body of the English nation, wedded to High Church principles, 
took sides in his favor. But the arguments of his accusers 
developed some great principles — led to the assertion of the 
doctrines of toleration ; for, if passive obedience to the rulers of 
the state and church were obligatory, then all Dissenters might be 
curbed and suppressed. The Whig managers of the trial, by 



264 UNION OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. [CHAP. XVII. 

opposing the bigoted 4 Churchmen, aided the cause of dissent, justi- 
fied the revolution, and upheld the conquest by William III. And 
their speeches are upon record, that they asserted the great 
principles of civil and religious liberty, in the face of all the 
authority, dignity, and wisdom of the realm. It is true they lost 
as a party, on account of the bigotry of the times ; but they 
furnished another pillar to uphold the constitution, and ad- 
duced new and powerful arguments in support of constitutional 
liberty. The country gained, if they, as a party, lost ; and though 
Sacheverell was lauded by his church, his conviction was a 
triumph to the friends of freedom. Good resulted in many other 
ways. Political leaders learned moral wisdom ; they saw the 
folly of persecuting men for libels, when such men had the sym- 
pathy of the people ; that such persecutions were undignified, and 
that, while they gained their end, they lost more by victory than 
by defeat. The trial of Sacheverell, while it brought to view 
more clearly some great constitutional truths, also more effectually 
advanced the liberty of the press ; for, surely, restriction on the 
press is a worse evil, than the violence and vituperation of 
occasional libels. 

The great domestic event of this reign was doubtless the 
union of Scotland and England ; a consummation of lasting peace 
between the two countries, which William III. had proposed. 
Nothing could be more beneficent for both the countries ; and the 
only wonder is, that it was not done before, when James II. 
ascended the English throne ; and nothing then, perhaps, prevented 
it, but the bitter jealousy which had so long existed between these 
countries ; a jealousy, dislike, and prejudice which have hardly 
yet passed away. 

Scotland, until the reign of James II., was theoretically and 
practically independent of England, but was not so fortunately 
placed, as the latter country, for the development of energies. 
The country was smaller, more barren, and less cultivated. The 
people were less civilized, and had less influence on the political 
welfare of the state. The aristocracy were more powerful, and 
were more jealous of royal authority. There were constant 
feuds and jealousies between dominant classes, which checked the 
growth in political importance, wealth, and civilization. But the 



CHAP. XVII.] DUKE OF HAMILTON. 265 

people were more generally imbued with the ultra principles of' 
the Reformation, were more religious, and cherished a peculiar 
attachment to the Presbyterian form of church government, and 
a peculiar hatred of every thing which resembled Roman 
Catholicism. They were, moreover, distinguished for patriotism, 
and had great jealousy of English influences. 

James II. was the legitimate King of Scotland, as well as of 
England ; but he soon acquired a greater love for England, than 
he retained for his native country ; and England being the 
greater country, the interests of Scotland were frequently 
sacrificed to those of England. 

Queen Anne, as the daughter of James II., was also the legiti- 
mate sovereign of Scotland ; and, on her decease, the Scotch were 
not bound to acknowledge the Elector of Hanover as their legiti- 
mate king. 

Many ardent and patriotic Scotchmen, including the Duke of 
Hamilton and Fletcher of Saltoun, deemed it a favorable time to 
assert, on the death of Queen Anne, their national independence, 
since the English government was neither just nor generous to the 
lesser country. 

Under these circumstances, there were many obstacles to a 
permanent union, and it was more bitterly opposed in Scotland 
than in England. The more patriotic desired complete independ 
ence. Many were jealous of the superior prosperity of England 
The people in the Highlands and the north of Scotland were Jaco 
binical in their principles, and were attached to the Stuart dynasty 
The Presbyterians feared the influence of English Episcopacy 
and Scottish peers deprecated a servile dependence on the parlia^ 
ment of England. 

But the English government, on the whole, much as it hated 
Scotch Presbyterianism and Scotch influence, desired a union, in 
order to secure the peaceful succession of the house of Hanover ; 
for the north of Scotland was favorable to the Stuarts, and without 
a union, English liberties would be endangered by Jacobinical 
intrigues. English statesmen felt this, and used every measure to 
secure this end. 

The Scotch were overreached. Force, bribery, and corruption 
were resorted to. The Duke of Hamilton proved a traitor, and the 
23 



266 UNION OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. [CHAP. XVII. 

union was effected -f a union exceedingly important to the peace of 
both countries, but especially desirable to England. Important con- 
cessions were made by the English, to which they were driven 
only by fear. They might have ruled Scotland as they did Ire- 
land, but for the intrepidity and firmness of the Scotch, who, 
while negotiations were pending, passed the famous Act of Security, 
by which the Scottish parliament decreed the succession in Scot- 
land, on the death of the queen, open and elective ; the independ- 
ence and power of parliaments ; freedom in trade and commerce ; 
and the liberty of Scotland to engage or not in the English conti- 
nental wars. The English parliament retaliated, indeed, by an act 
restricting the trade of Scotland, and declaring Scotchmen aliens 
throughout the English dominions. But the conflicts between the 
Whigs and Tories induced government to repeal the act ; and the 
commissioners for the union secured their end. 

It was agreed, in the famous treaty they at last effected, that 
the two kingdoms of England and Scotland be united into one, by 
the name of Great Britain. 

That the succession to the United Kingdom shall remain to the 
Princess Sophia, Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of 
her body, being Protestants ; and that all Papists, and persons 
marrying Papists, shall be excluded from, and be forever incapable 
of inheriting, the crown of Great Britain ; 

That the whole people of. Great Britain shall be represented by 
one parliament, in which sixteen peers and forty-five commoners, 
chosen for Scotland, should sit and vote ; 

That the subjects of the United Kingdom shall enjoy an entire 
freedom and intercourse of trade and navigation, and reciprocal 
communication of all other rights, privileges, and advantages be- 
longing to the subjects of either kingdom ; 

That the laws, in regard to public rights and civil government, 
shall be the same in both countries, but that no alteration shall be 
made in the laws respecting private rights, unless for the evident 
utility of the subjects residing in Scotland ; 

That the Court of Session, and all other courts of judicature 
in Scotland, remain as before the union, subject, however, to 
such regulations as may be made by the parliament of Great 
Britain. 



CHAP. XVII.] WITS OF QUEEN ANNE'S KEIGN. 267 

Beside these permanent regulations, a sum of three hundred 
and ninety-eight thousand pounds was granted to Scotland, as an 
equivalent to the augmentation of the customs and excise. 

By this treaty, the Scotch became identified with the English 
in interest. They lost their independence, but they gained secu- 
rity and peace ; and rose in wealth and consequence. The nation, 
moreover, was burdened by the growth of the national debt. The 
advantage was mutual, but England gained the greater advantage 
by shifting a portion of her burdens on Scotland, by securing the 
hardy people of that noble country to fight her battles, and by 
converting a nation of enemies into a nation of friends. 

We come now to glance at those illustrious men who adorned 
the literature of England in this brilliant age, celebrated for polit- 
ical as well as literary writings. 

Of these, Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, Bentley, Warburton, 
Arbuthnot, Gay, Pope, Tickell, Halifax, Parnell, Rowe, Prior, 
Congreve, Steele, and Berkeley, were the most distinguished. 
Dryden belonged to the preceding age ; to the period of license 
and gayety — the greatest but most immoral of all the great poets 
of England, from the time of Milton to that of Pope. 

The wits of Queen Anne's reign were political writers as well 
as poets, and their services were sought for and paid by the great 
statesmen of the times, chiefly of the Tory party. Marlborough 
neglected the poets, and they contributed to undermine his power. 

Of these wits the most distinguished and respectable was Addison, 
born 1672. He was well educated, and distinguished himself at 
Oxford, and was a fellow of Magdalen College. His early verses, 
which would now be pronounced very inferior, however attracted 
the notice of Dryden, then the great autocrat of letters, and the oracle 
of the literary clubs. At the age of twenty-seven, Addison was pro- 
vided with a pension from the Whig government, and sent off" on 
his travels. He was afterwards made secretary to Lord Halifax, 
and elected a member of the House of Commons, but was never 
able to make a speech. He, however, made up for his failure as an 
orator by his power as a writer, being a perfect master of elegant 
satire. He was also charming in private conversation, and his 
society was much sought by eminent statesmen, scholars, and 
noblemen. In 1708, he became secretary for Ireland, and, while 



268 SWIFT. [chap. XVII. 

he resided at Dublin, wrote those delightful papers on which his 
fame chiefly rests. Not as the author of Rosamond, nor of Latin 
verses, nor of the treatise on Medals, nor of Letters from Italy, nor 
of the tragedy of Cato, would he now be known to us. His glory 
is derived from the Tatler and Spectator — an entirely new spe- 
cies of writing in his age, original, simple, and beautiful, but 
chiefly marked for polished and elegant satire against the follies 
and bad taste of his age. Moreover, his numbers of the Spectator 
are distinguished for elevation of sentiment, and moral purity, 
without harshness, and without misanthropy. He wrote three 
sevenths of that immortal production, and on every variety of 
subject, without any attempt to be eloquent or intense, without 
pedantry and without affectation. The success of the work was 
immense, and every one who could afford it, had it served on the 
breakfast table with the tea and toast. It was the general subject 
of conversation in all polite circles, and did much to improve the 
taste and reform the morals of the age. There was nothing which 
he so severely ridiculed as the show of learning without the reality, 
coxcombry in conversation, extravagance in dress, female flirts 
and butterflies, gay and fashionable women, and all false modesty 
and affectation. But he blamed without bitterness, and reformed 
without exhortation, while he exalted what was simple, and painted 
in most beautiful colors the virtues of contentment, simplicity, 
sincerity, and cheerfulness. 

His latter days were imbittered by party animosity, and the 
malignant stings of literary rivals. Nor was he happy in his 
domestic life, having married a proud countess, who did not appre- 
ciate his genius. He also became addicted to intemperate habits. 
Still he was ever honored and respected, and, when he died, was 
buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Next to Addison in fame, and superior in genius, was Swift, born 
in Ireland, in 1677, educated at Dublin, and patronized by Lord 
Temple. He was a bitter and zealous Tory, and was rewarded, 
finally, with the deanery of St. Patrick's. He was very useful to 
his party by his political writings ; but his fame rests chiefly on his 
poetry, and his Gulliver's Travels, marked and disgraced by his 
savage sarcasm on woman, and his vilification of human nature. He 
was a great master of venomous satire. He spared neither friends 



CHAP. XVII.] POPE- — BOLINGBEOKE GAY PRIOR. 269 

nor enemies. He was ambitious, misanthropic and selfish. His 
treatment of woman was disgraceful and heartless in the extreme. 
But he was witty, learned, and natural. He was never known to 
laugh, while he convulsed the circles into which he was thrown. 
He was rough to his servants, insolent to inferiors, and sycophantic 
to men of rank. His distinguishing power was his unsparing and 
unscrupulous sarcasm ; and his invective was as dreadful as the 
personal ridicule of Voltaire. As a poet he was respectable, and 
as a writer he was original. He was indifferent to literary fame, 
and never attempted any higher style of composition than that in 
which he could excel. His last days were miserable, and he 
lingered a long while in hopeless and melancholy idiocy. 

Pope properly belongs to a succeeding age, though his first 
writings attracted considerable attention during the life of Addison, 
who first raised him from obscurity. He is the greatest, after 
Diyden, of all the second class poets of his country. His Rape 
of the Lock, the most original of his poems, established his 
fame. But his greatest works were the translations of the Iliad 
and Odyssey, the Dunciad, and his Essay on Man. He was 
well paid for his labors, and lived in a beautiful villa at Twick- 
enham, the friend of Bolingbroke, and the greatest literary 
star of his age. But he was bitter and satirical, irritable, parsimo- 
nious, and vain. As a versifier, he has never been equalled. He 
died in 1744, in the Romish faith, beloved but by few, and disliked 
by the world generally. 

Bolingbroke was not a poet, but a man of vast genius, a great 
statesman, and a great writer on history and political philosophy, 
a man of' most fascinating manners and conversation, brilliant, 
witty, and learned, but unprincipled and intriguing, the great 
leader of the Toiy party. Gay, as a poet, was respectable, but 
poor, unfortunate, a hanger on of great people, and miserably paid 
for his sycophancy. His fame rests on his Fables and his Beg- 
gar's Opera. Prior first made himself distinguished by his satire 
called A City Mouse and a Country Mouse, aimed against Dryden. 
He was well rewarded by government, and was sent as minister to 
Paris. Like most of the wits of his time, he was convivial, and 
not always particular in the choice of his associates. Humor was 
the natural turn of his mind. Steele was editor of the Spectator, 
23* 



270 WRITERS OF THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE. [CHAP. XVII. 

and wrote some excellent papers, although vastly inferior to Addi- 
son's. He is the father of the periodical essay, was a man of 
fashion and pleasure, and had great experience in the follies and 
vanities of the world. It is doubtful whether the writings of the 
great men who adorned the age of Anne will ever regain the 
ascendency they once enjoyed, since they have all been surpassed 
in succeeding times. They had not the fire, enthusiasm, or genius 
which satisfies the wants of the present generation. As poets, 
they had no, greatness of fancy ; and as philosophers, they were 
cold and superficial. Nor did they write for the people, but for 
the great, with whom they sought to associate, by whose praises 
they were consoled, and by whose bread they were sustained. 
They wrote for a class, and that class alone, that chiefly seeks to 
avoid ridicule and abstain from absurdity, that never attempts the 
sublime, and never sinks to the ridiculous ; a class keen of ob- 
servation, fond of the satirical, and indifferent to all institutions and 
enterprises which have for their object the elevation of the masses, 
or the triumph of the abstract principles of truth and justice. 



References. — Lord Mahon's History of England, which commences 
Avith the peace of Utrecht, is one of the most useful and interesting works 
which have lately appeared. Smollett's continuation of Hume should be 
consulted, although the author was greater as a novelist than as an histo- 
rian. Burnet's history on this period is a standard. Hallam should be 
read in reference to all constitutional questions. Coxe's Life of Marlbo- 
rough throws great light on the period, and is very valuable. Macaulay's 
work will, of course, be read. See, also, Bolingbroke's Letters, and the 
Duke of Berwick's Memoirs. A chapter in the Pictorial History is very 
good as to literary history and the progress of the arts and sciences. See, 
also, Johnson's Lives of the Poets ; Nichols's Life of Addison ; Scott's 
Life of Swift ; Macaulay's Essay on Addison ; and the Spectator and 
Tatler. 



CHAP. XVIII.] EARLY HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 271 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

PETER THE GREAT, AND RUSSIA. 

While Louis XIV. was prosecuting his schemes of aggrandize- 
ment, and William III. was opposing those schemes ; while Villeroy, 
Villars, Marlborough, and Eugene were contending, at the head of 
great armies, for their respective masters; a new power was 
arising at the north, destined soon to become prominent among 
the great empires of the world. The political importance of 
Russia was not appreciated at the close of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, until the great resources of the country were brought to the 
view of Europe by the extraordinary genius of Peter the Great. 

The histoiy of Russia, before the reign of this great prince, has 
not excited -much interest, and is not particularly eventful or 
important. The Russians are descended from the ancient Sclavonic 
race, supposed to be much inferior to the Germanic or Teutonic 
tribes, to whom most of the civilized nations of Europe trace their 
origin. 

The first great event in Russian history is the nominal conver- 
sion of a powerful king to Christianity, in the tenth century, named 
Vladimir, whose reign was a mixture of cruelty, licentiousness, and 
heroism. Seeing the necessity of some generally recognized 
religion, he sent ten of his most distinguished men into all the 
various countries then known, to examine their religious systems. 
Being semi-barbarians, they were disposed to recommend that form 
which had the most imposing ceremonial, and appealed most forci- 
bly to the senses. The commissioners came to Mecca, but soon 
left with contempt, since Mohammedanism then made too great 
demands upon the powers of self-control, and prohibited the use 
of many things to which the barbarians were attached. They 
were no better pleased with the Manichean philosophy, which then 
extensively prevailed in the East ; for this involved the settlement 
of abstract ideas, for which barbarians had no relish. They dis- 
liked Roman Catholicism, on account of the arrogant claims of the 



272 THE TARTAR CONQUEST. [CHAP. XVIII. 

pope. Judaism was spurned, because it had no country, and its 
professors were scattered over the face of the earth. But the 
lofty minarets of St. Sophia, and the extravagant magnificence of 
the Greek worship, filled the commissioners with admiration ; 
and they easily induced Vladimir to adopt the forms of the 
Greek Church ; which has ever since been the established religion 
of Russia. But Christianity, in its corrupted form, failed to destroy, 
and scarcely alleviated, the traits of barbarous life. Old super- 
stitions and vices prevailed ; nor were the Russian territories on an 
equality with the Gothic kingdoms of Europe, in manners, arts, 
learning, laws, or piety. 

When Genghis Khan, with his Tartar hordes, overran the world, 
Russia was subdued, and Tartar princes took possession of the 
throne of the ancient czars. But the Russian princes, in the 
thirteenth century, recovered their ancient power. Alexander 
Nevsky performed exploits of great brilliancy ; gained important 
victories over Danes, Swedes, Lithuanians, and Teutonic knights ; 
and greatly enlarged the boundaries of his kingdom. In the four- 
teenth century, Moscow became a powerful city, to which was 
transferred the seat of government, which before was Novgorod. 
Under the successor of Ivan Kalita, the manners, laws, and insti- 
tutions of the Russians became fixed, and the absolute power of 
the czars was established. Underlvan III., who ascended the Mus- 
covite throne in 1462, the Tartar rule was exterminated, and the 
various provinces and principalities, of which Russia was com- 
posed, were brought under a central government. The Kremlin, 
with its mighty towers and imposing minarets, arose in all the 
grandeur of Eastern art and barbaric strength. The mines of the 
country were worked, the roads cleared of banditti, and a code of 
laws established. The veil which concealed Russia from the rest 
of Europe was rent. An army of three hundred thousand men 
was enlisted, Siberia was discovered, the printing press introduced, 
and civilization commenced. But the czar was, nevertheless, a 
brutal tyrant and an abandoned libertine, who massacred his son, 
executed his nobles, and destroyed his cities. 

His successors were disgraced by every crime which degrades 
humanity ; and the whole population remained in rudeness and 
barbarism, superstition and ignorance. The clergy wielded enor- 



CHAP. XVIII.] ACCESSION OF PETEE THE GREAT. 273 

mous power ; which, however, was rendered subservient to the 
interests of absolutism. 

Such was Russia, when Peter, the son of Alexis Michaelovitz, 
ascended the throne, in 1682 — a boy, ten years of age. He 
early exhibited great sagacity and talent, but was addicted to gross 
pleasures. These, strangely, did not enervate him, or prevent him 
from making considerable attainments. But he was most distin- 
guished for a military spirit, which was treated with contempt by 
the Regent Sophia, daughter of Alexis by a first marriage. As 
soon, however, as her eyes were open to his varied studies and 
his ambitious spirit, she became jealous, and attempted to secure 
his assassination. In this she failed, and the youthful sovereign 
reigned supreme in Moscow, at the age of seventeen. 

No sooner did he assume the reins of empire, than his genius 
blazed forth with singular brilliancy, and the rapid development 
of his powers was a subject of universal wonder. Full of courage 
and energy, he found nothing too arduous for him to undertake ; 
and he soon conceived the vast project of changing the whole 
system of his government, and reforming the manners of his 
subjects. 

He first directed his attention to the art of war, and resolved to 
increase the military strength of his empire. With the aid of Le 
Fort, a Swiss adventurer, and Gordon, a Scotch officer, he insti- 
tuted, gradually, a standing army of twenty thousand men, offi- 
cered, armed, and disciplined after the European model ; cut off 
the long beards of the soldiers, took away their robes, and changed 
their Asiatic dress. 

He then conceived the idea of a navy, which may be traced to 
his love of sailing in a boat, which he had learned to navigate 
himself. He studied assiduously the art of ship-building, and 
soon laid the foundation of a navy. 

His enterprising and innovating spirit created, as it was to be 
expected, considerable disaffection among the partisans of the old 
regime — the old officers of the army, and the nobles, stripped of 
many of their privileges. A rebellion was the consequence ; 
which, however, was soon suppressed, and the conspirators were 
executed with unsparing cruelty. 

He then came to the singular resolution of visiting, foreign 



274 peter's reforms. [chap, xviii. 

countries, in order t6 acquire useful information, both in respect to 
the arts of government and the arts of civilization. Many amus- 
ing incidents are recorded of him in his travels. He journeyed 
incognito ; clambered up the sides of ships, ascended the rigging, 
and descended into the hold ; he hired himself out as a workman 
in Holland, lived on the wretched stipend which he earned as a 
ship-carpenter, and mastered all the details of ship-building. From 
Holland he went to England, where he was received with great 
honor by William III. ; studied the state of manufactures and 
trades, and sought to gain knowledge on all common subjects. 
From England he went to Austria, intending to go afterwards 
to Italy; but he was compelled to return home, on account of 
a rebellion of the old military guard, called the Strelitz, who 
were peculiarly disaffected. But he easily suppressed the discon- 
tents, and punished the old soldiers with unsparing rigor. He even 
executed thirty with his own hands. 

He then turned himself, in good earnest, to the work of reform. 
His passions were military, and he longed to conquer kingdoms 
and cities. But he saw no probability of success, unless he could 
first civilize his subjects, and teach the soldiers the great improve- 
ments in the art of war. In order to conquer, he resolved first to 
reform his nation. His desires were selfish, but happened to be 
directed into channels which benefited his country. Like Napo- 
leon, his ruling passion was that of the aggrandizement of himself 
and nation. But Providence designed that his passions should be 
made subservient to the welfare of his race. It is to his glory 
that he had enlargement of mind sufficient to perceive the true 
sources of national prosperity. To secure this, therefore, became 
the aim of his life. He became a reformer ; but a reformer, like 
Hildebrand, of the despotic school. 

The first object of all despots is the improvement of the military 
force. To effect this, he abolished the old privileges of the 
soldiers, disbanded them, and drafted them into the new regi- 
ments, which he had organized on the European plan. 

He found more difficulty in changing the dress of the people, 
who, generally, wore the long Asiatic robe, and the Tartar beard ; 
and such was the opposition made by the people, that he was 
obliged to compromise the matter, and compelled all who would 



CHAP. XVIII.] HIS WAR WITH CHARLES XII. 275 

wear beards and robes to pay a heavy tax, except priests and peas- 
ants ; having granted the indulgence to priests on account of the 
ceremonial of their worship, and to peasants in order to render 
their costume ignominious. 

His next important measure was the toleration of all religions, and 
all sects, with the exception of the Jesuits, whom he hated and 
feared. He caused the Bible to be translated into the Sclavonic 
language ; founded a school for the marine, and also institutions 
for the encouragement of literature and art. He abolished the old 
and odious laws of marriage, by which women had no liberty in 
the choice of husbands. He suppressed all useless monasteries ; 
taxed the clergy as well as the laity ; humiliated the patriarch, and 
assumed many of his powers. He improved the administration of 
justice, mitigated laws in relation to woman, and raised her social 
rank. He established post-offices, boards of trade, a vigorous 
police, hospitals and almshouses. He humbled the nobility, and 
abolished many of their privileges ; for which the people honored 
him, and looked upon him as their benefactor. 

Having organized his army, and effected social reforms, he 
turned his attention to war and national aggrandizement. 

His first war was with Sweden, then the most powerful of the 
northern states, and ruled by Charles XII., who, at the age of 
eighteen, had just ascended the throne. The cause of the war 
was the desire of aggrandizement on the part of the czar ; the 
pretence was, the restitution of some lands which Sweden had 
obtained from Denmark and Poland. Taking advantage of the 
defenceless state of Sweden, — attacked, at that time, by Denmark 
on the one side, and by Poland on the other, — Peter invaded the 
territories of Charles with an army of sixty thousand men, and laid 
siege to Narva. The Swedish forces were only eight thousand ; 
but they were veterans, and they were headed by a hero. Not- 
withstanding the great disproportion between the contending parties, 
the Russians were defeated, although attacked in their intrench- 
ments, and all the artillery fell into the hands of the Swedes. The 
victory at Narva settled the fame of Charles, but intoxicated his 
mind, and led to a presumptuous self-confidence ; while the defeat 
of Peter did not discourage him, but braced him to make still 
greater exertions — one of the numerous instances, so often seen 



276 CHARLES XII. [CHAP. XVIII. 

in human life, whefe defeat is better than victoiy. But the 
czar was conscious of his strength, and also of his weakness. 
He knew he had unlimited resources, but that his troops were 
inexperienced ; and he made up his mind for disasters at the 
beginning, in the hope of victory in the end. " I know very 
well," said he, " that the Swedes will have the advantage 
over us for a considerable time ; but they will teach us, at 
length, to beat them." The Swede, on the other hand, was 
intoxicated with victory, and acquired that fatal presumption 
which finally proved disastrous to himself and to his country. He 
despised his adversary ; while Peter, without overrating his victo- 
rious enemy, was led to put forth new energies, and develop the 
great resources of his nation. He was sure of final success ; and 
he who can be sustained by the consciousness of ultimate triumph, 
can ever afford to wait. It is the spirit which sustains the martyr. 
It constitutes the distinguishing element of enthusiasm and exalted 
heroism. 

But Peter not only made new military preparations, but prose- 
cuted his schemes of internal improvement, and projected, after 
his unfortunate defeat at Narva, the union, by a canal, of the 
Baltic and Caspian Seas. About this time, he introduced into 
Russia flocks of Saxony sheep, erected linen and paper manufac- 
tories, built hospitals, and invited skilful mechanics, of all trades, 
to settle in his kingdom. But Charles thought only of war and 
glory, and did not reconstruct or reproduce. He pursued his mil- 
itary career by invading Poland, then ruled by the Elector of Sax- 
ony ; while Peter turned his attention to the organization of new 
armies, melting bells into cannon, constructing fleets, and attending 
to all the complicated cares of a mighty nation with the most 
minute assiduity. He drew plans of fortresses, projected military 
reforms, and inspired his soldiers with his own enthusiasm. And 
his energy and perseverance were soon rewarded. He captured 
Marienburgh, a strong city on the confines of Livonia and Ingria ; 
and among the captives was a young peasant girl, who eventually 
became the Empress Catharine, and to whose counsels Peter was 
much indebted for his great success. 

She was the daughter of a poor woman of Livonia ; lost 
her mother at the age of three years ; and, at that early age, 



CHAP. XVIII.] BUILDING OF ST. PETERSBURG. 277 

attracted the notice of the parish clerk, a Lutheran clergyman ; 
was brought up with his own daughters, and married a young ser- 
geant of the army, who was killed in the capture of the city. She 
interested the Russian general, by her intense grief and great 
beauty ; was taken into his family, and, soon after, won the 
favor of Prince MenzikofF, the prime minister of the czar; 
became mistress of his palace ; there beheld Peter himself, 
captivated him, and was married to him, — at first privately, 
and afterwards publicly. Her rise, from so obscure a position, 
in a distant country town, to be the wife of the absolute monarch 
of an empire of sixty-three millions of people, is the most ex- 
traordinary in the history of the world. When she enslaved the 
czar by the power of her charms, she was only seventeen years 
of age ; two years after the foundations of St. Petersburg were 
laid. 

The building of this great northern capital was as extraordinary 
as the other great acts of this monarch. Amid the marshes, at 
the mouth of the Neva, a rival city to the ancient metropolis of 
the empire arose in five months. But one hundred thousand 
people perished during the first year, in consequence of the sever- 
ity of their labors, and the pestilential air of the place. The new 
city was an object of as great disgust to the nobles of Russia and 
the inhabitants of the older cities, as it was the delight and pride 
of the czar, who made it the capital of his vast dominions. And 
the city was scarcely built, before its great commercial advantages 
were appreciated ; and vessels from all parts of the world, freighted 
with the various treasures of its different kingdoms and coun- 
tries, appeared in the harbor of Cronstadt. 

Charles XII. looked with contempt on the Herculean labors of 
his rival to civilize and enrich his country, and remarked " that the 
czar might amuse himself as he saw fit in building a city, but that 
he should soon take it from him, and set fire to his wooden house ; " 
a bombastic boast, which, like most boasting, came most signally 
to nought. 

Indeed, success now turned in favor of Peter, whose forces had 
been constantly increasing, while those of Charles had been de- 
creasing. City after city fell into the hands of Peter, and whole 
24 



278 NEW WAR WITH SWEDEN. [CHAP. XVJII. 

provinces were conquered from Sweden. Soon all Ingria was 
added to the empire of the czar, the government of which 
was intrusted to Menzikoff, a man of extraordinary abilities, 
raised from obscurity, as a seller of pies in the streets of Moscow, 
to be a prince of the empire. His elevation was a great mortifi- 
cation to the old and proud nobility. But Peter not only endeav- 
ored to reward and appropriate merit, but to humble the old 
aristocracy, who were averse to his improvements. And Peter 
was as cold and haughty to them, as he was free and companion- 
able with his meanest soldiers. All great despots are indifferent 
to grades of rank, when their own elevation is above envy or the 
reach of ambition. The reward of merit by the czar, if it alien- 
ated the affections of his nobles, increased the veneration and 
enthusiasm of the people, who are, after all, the great permanent 
foundation on which absolute power rests ; illustrated by the em- 
pire of the popes, as well as the despotism of Napoleon. 

While Peter contended, with various success, with the armies 
of Sweden, he succeeded in embroiling Sweden in a war with 
Poland, and in diverting Charles from the invasion of Russia. 
Had Charles, at first, and perseveringly, concentrated all his 
strength in an invasion of Russia, he might have changed the 
politics of Europe. But he was induced to invade Poland, and 
soon drove the luxurious and cowardly monarch from his capital 
and throne, and then turned towards Russia, to play the part of 
Alexander. But he did not find a Darius in the czar, who was 
ready to meet him, at the head of immense armies. 

The Russian forces amounted to one hundred thousand men ; 
the Swedish to eighty thousand, and they were veterans. Peter 
did not venture to risk the fate of his empire, by a pitched battle, 
with such an army of victorious troops. So he attempted a strata- 
gem, and succeeded. He decoyed the Swedes into a barren and 
wasted territory ; and Charles, instead of marching to Moscow, as 
he ought to have done, followed his expected prey where he could 
get no provisions for his men, or forage for his horses. Exhausted 
by fatigue and famine, his troops drooped in the pursuit, and even 
suffered themselves to be diverted into still more barren sections. 
Under these circumstances, they were defeated in a disastrous 
battle. Charles, struck with madness, refused to retreat. Disasters 



CHAP. XVIII.] WAR WITH THE TURKS. 279 

multiplied. The victorious Russians hung upon his rear. The 
Cossacks cut off his stragglers. The army of eighty thousand 
melted away to twenty-five thousand. Still the infatuated Swede 
dreamed of victoiy, and expected to see the troops of his enemy 
desert. The winter set in with its northern severity, and reduced 
still further his famished troops. He lost time by marches and 
counter-marches, without guides, and in the midst of a hostile 
population. At last he reached Pultowa, a village on the banks 
of the Vorskla. Peter hastened to meet him, with an army of 
sixty thousand, and one of the bloodiest battles in the history of 
war was fought. The Swedes performed miracles of valor. But 
valor could do nothing against overwhelming strength. A disas- 
trous defeat was the result, and Charles, with a few regiments, 
escaped to Turkey. 

Had the battle of Pultowa been decided differently ; had Charles 
conquered instead of Peter, or had Peter lost his life, the empire 
of Russia would probably have been replunged into its original 
barbarism, and the balance of power, in Europe, been changed. 

But Providence, which ordained the civilization of Russia, also 
ordained that the triumphant czar should not be unduly aggran- 
dized, and should himself learn lessons of humility. The Turks, 
in consequence of the intrigues of Charles, and their hereditary 
jealousy, made war upon Peter, and advanced against him with 
an army of two hundred and fifty thousand men. His own army 
was composed of only forty thousand. He was also indiscreet, 
and soon found himself in the condition of Charles at Pultowa. 
On the banks of the Pruth, in Moldavia, he was surrounded by the 
whole Turkish force, and famine or surrender seemed inevitable. 
It was in this desperate and deplorable condition that he was 
rescued by the Czarina Catharine, by whose address a treaty 
was made with his victorious enemy, and Peter was allowed 
to retire with his army. Charles XII. was indignant beyond 
measure with the Turkish general, for granting such easy condi- 
tions, when he had the czar in his power ; and to his reproaches 
the vizier of the sultan replied, " I have a right to make peace or 
war ; and our law commands us to grant peace to our enemies, 
when they implore our clemency." Charles replied with an 
insult ; and, though a fugitive in the Turkish camp, he threw 



280 PETER MAKES A SECOND TOUR. [CHAP. XVIII. 

himself on a sofa, contemptuously cast his eye on all present, 
stretched out his leg, and entangled his spur in the vizier's robe ; 
which insult the magnanimous Turk affected to consider an acci- 
dent. 

After the defeat of Peter on the banks of the Pruth, he devoted 
himself with renewed energy to the improvement of his country. 
He embellished St. Petersburg, his new capital, with palaces, 
churches, and arsenals. He increased his army and navy, strength- 
ened himself by new victories, and became gradually master of 
both sides of the Gulf of Finland, by which his vast empire was 
protected from invasion. 

He now reached the exalted height to which he had long aspired. 
He assumed the title of emperor, and his title was universally 
acknowledged. He then meditated a second tour of Europe, with 
a view to study the political constitutions of the various states. 
Thirteen years had elapsed, since, as a young enthusiast, he had 
visited Amsterdam and London. He now travelled, a second 
time, with the additional glory of a great name, and in the full 
maturity of his mind. He visited Hamburg, Stockholm, Lubec, 
Amsterdam, and Paris. At this latter place he was much noticed. 
Wherever he went, his course was a triumphal procession. But 
he disdained flattery, and was wearied with pompous ceremonies. 
He could not be flattered out of his simplicity, or the zeal of 
acquiring useful knowledge. He visited all the works of art, and 
was particularly struck with the Gobelin tapestries and the tomb 
of Richelieu. " Great man," said he, apostrophizing his image, 
" I would give half of my kingdom to learn of thee how to govern 
the other half." His residence in Paris inspired all classes with 
profound respect ; and from Paris he went to Berlin. There he 
found sympathy with Frederic I. of Prussia, whose tastes and 
character somewhat resembled his own ; and from him he learned 
many useful notions in the art of government. But he was sud- 
denly recalled from Berlin by the bad conduct of his son Alexis, 
who was the heir to his throne. He was tried, condemned, dis- 
graced, humiliated, and disinherited. He probably would have 
been executed by his hard and rigorous father, had he not died in 
prison. He was hostile to his father's plans of reform, and inde- 
cently expressed a wish for his death. The conduct of Peter 



CHAP. XVIII.] ELEVATION OF CATHAEINE. 281 

towards him is generally considered harsh and unfeeling ; but it 
has many palliations, if the good of his subjects and the peace of 
the realm are more to be desired than the life of an ignominious 
prince. 

Peter prosecuted his wars and his reforms. The treaty of 
Neustadt secured to Russia, after twenty years of unbroken war, 
a vast increase of territory, and placed her at the head of the 
northern powers. The emperor also enriched his country by 
opening new branches of trade, constructing canals, rewarding 
industry, suppressing gambling and mendicity, introducing iron 
and steel manufacture, building cities, and establishing a vigorous 
police. 

After having settled the finances and trade of his empire, sub- 
dued his enemies at home and abroad, and compelled all the nobles 
and clergy to swear fealty to the person whom he should select 
as his successor, he appointed his wife, Catharine ; and she was 
solemnly crowned empress in 1724, he himself, at her inaugura- 
tion, walking on foot, as captain of her guard. He could not 
have made a better choice, as she was, in all substantial respects, 
worthy of the exalted position to which she was raised. 

In about a year after, he died, leaving behind him his principles 
and a mighty name. Other kings have been greater generals ; 
but few have derived from war greater success. Some have com- 
manded larger armies ; but he created those which he commanded. 
Many have destroyed ; but he reconstructed. He was a despot, 
but ruled for the benefit of his country. He was disgraced by 
violent passions, his cruelty was sanguinary, and his tastes were 
brutal ; but his passions did not destroy his judgment, nor his appe- 
tites make him luxurious. He was incessantly active and vigilant, 
his prejudices were few, and his views tolerant and enlightened. 
He was only cruel when his authority was impeached. His best 
portraiture is in his acts. He found a country semi-barbarous, 
convulsed by disorders, a prey to petty tyrannies, weak from dis- 
union, and trembling before powerful neighbors. He left it a first- 
class power, freed in a measure from its barbarous customs, im- 
proved in social life, in arts, in science, and, perhaps, in morals. 
He left a large and disciplined army, a considerable navy, and 
numerous institutions for the civilization of the people. He left 
24* 



282 EARLY HISTORY OF SWEDEN. [CHAP. XVIII. 

more — the moral effect of a great example, of a man in the pos- 
session of unbounded riches and power, making great personal 
sacrifices to improve himself in the art of governing for the wel- 
fare of the millions over whom he was called to rule. These 
virtues and these acts have justly won for him the title of Peter 
the Great — a title which the world has bestowed upon but few of 
the great heroes of ancient or modern times. 



The reign of Charles XII. is intimately connected with that of 
Peter the Great ; these monarchs being contemporaries and rivals, 
both reigning in northern countries of great extent and comparative 
barbarism. The reign of Peter was not so exclusively military 
as that of Charles, with whom war was a passion and a profes- 
sion. The interest attached to Charles arises more from his 
eccentricities and brilliant military qualities, than from any 
extraordinary greatness of mind or heart. ; He was barbarous 
in his manners, and savage in his resentments ; a stranger 
to the pleasures of society, obstinate, revengeful, unsympa- 
thetic, and indifferent to friendship and hatred. But he was 
brave, temperate, generous, intrepid in danger, and firm in 
misfortune. 

Before his singular career can be presented, attention must be 
directed to the country over which he reigned, and which will be 
noticed in connection with Denmark ; these two countries form- 
ing a greater part of the ancient Scandinavia, from which our 
Teutonic ancestors migrated, the land of Odin, and Frea, and 
Thor, those half-fabulous deities, concerning whom there are still 
divided opinions ; some supposing that they were heroes, and oth- 
ers, impersonations of virtues, or elements and wonders of nature. 
The mythology of Greece does not more fully abound with gods 
and goddesses, than that of the old Scandinavia with rude 
deities, — dwarfs, and elfs, and mountain spirits. It was in these 
northern regions that the Normans acquired their wild enthusiasm, 
their supernatural daring, and their magnificent superstitions. It 
was from these regions that the Saxons brought their love of lib- 
erty, their spirit of enterprise, and their restless passion for the 
sea. The ancient Scandinavians were heroic, adventurous, and 



CHAP. XVIII.] INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 283 

chivalrous robbers, holding their women in great respect, and pro- 
foundly reverential in their notions of a supreme power. They 
were poor in silver, in gold, in the fruits of the earth, in luxuries, 
and in palaces, but rich in poetic sentiments and in religious ideas. 
Their chief vices were those of gluttony and intemperance, and 
their great pleasures were those of hunting and gambling. 

Fabulous as are most of their legends as to descent, still Scan- 
dinavia was probably peopled with hardy races before authentic 
history commences. Under different names, and at different 
times, they invaded the Roman empire. In the fifth century, 
they had settled in its desolated provinces — the Saxons in Eng- 
land, the Goths in Spain and Italy, the Vandals in Africa, the 
Burgundians in France, and the Lombards in Italy. 

Among the most celebrated of these northern Teutonic nations 
were the pirates who invaded England and France, under the 
name of Northmen. They came from Denmark, and some of 
their chieftains won a great name in their generation, such as 
Harold, Canute, Sweyn, and Rollo. 

Christianity was probably planted in Sweden about the middle 
of the ninth century. St. Anscar, a Westphalian monk, was the 
first successful missionaiy, and he was made Archbishop of Ham- 
burg, and primate of the north. 

The early history of the Swedes and Danes resembles that of 
England under the Saxon princes, and they were disgraced by the 
same great national vices. During the Middle Ages, no great 
character appeared worthy of especial notice. Some of the more 
powerful kings, such as Valdemar I. and II., and Canute VI., had 
quarrels with the Emperors of Germany, and invaded some prov- 
inces of their empire. Some of these princes were warriors, some 
cruel tyrants, none very powerful, and all characterized by the 
vices of their age — treachery, hypocrisy, murder, drunkenness, 
and brutal revenge. 

The most powerful of these kings was Christian I., who founded 
the dynasty of Oldenburgh, and who united under his sway the 
kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. He reigned from 
1448 to 1481 ; and in his family the crown of Sweden remained 
until the revolution effected by Gustavus Vasa, in 1525, and by 
which revolution Sweden was made independent of Denmark. 



284 GUSTAVUS VASA. [CHAP. XVIII. 

Gustavus Vasa was a nobleman descended from the ancient 
kings of Sweden, ana who, from the oppression to which his coun- 
try was subjected by Christian and the Archbishop of Upsal, was 
forced to seek refuge amid the forests of Dalecarlia. When Stock- 
holm was pillaged and her noblest citizens massacred by the cruel 
tyrant of the country, Gustavus headed an insurrection, defeated 
the king's forces, and was made king himself' by the States Gen- 
eral. He, perceiving that the Catholic clergy were opposed to the 
liberties and the great interests of his country, seized their for- 
tresses and lands, became a convert to the doctrine of the reform- 
ers, and introduced Lutheranism into the kingdom, which has ever 
since been the established religion of Sweden. He was despotic 
in his government, but ruled for the good of his subjects, and was 
distinguished for many noble qualities. 

The celebrated Gustavus Adolphus was his descendant, and was 
more absolute and powerful than even Gustavus Vasa. But he is 
chiefly memorable as the great hero of the Thirty Years' War, and 
as the greatest general of his age. Under his sway, Sweden was 
the most powerful of the northern kingdoms. 

He was succeeded by his daughter Christina, a woman of 
most extraordinary qualities ; a woman of genius, of taste, and of 
culture ; a woman who, at twenty-seven, became wearied of the 
world, and of the enjoyment of unlimited power, and who changed 
her religion, retired from her country, and abdicated her throne, 
that she might, unmolested, enjoy the elegant pleasures of Rome, 
and be solaced by the literature, religion, and art of that splendid 
capital. It was in the society of men of genius that she spent 
most of her time, and was the life of the most intellectual circle 
which then existed in Europe. 

She was succeeded by her cousin, who was elected King of 
Sweden, by the title of Charles Gustavus X., and he was suc- 
ceeded by Charles XL, the father of Charles XII. 

Charles XII. was fifteen years of age when he came to the 
throne, in the year 1697, and found his country strong in resources, 
and his army the best disciplined in Europe. His territories were 
one third larger than those of France when ruled by Louis XIV., 
though not so thickly populated. 

The young monarch, at first, gave but few indications of the 



CHAP. XVIII.] EARLY DAYS OF CHARLES XII. 285 

remarkable qualities which afterwards distinguished him. He was 
idle, dissipated, haughty, and luxurious. When he came to the 
council chamber, he was absent and indifferent, and generally sat 
with both legs thrown across the table. 

But his lethargy and indifference did not last long. Three 
great monarchs had conspired to ruin him, and dismember his 
kingdom. These were the Czar Peter, Frederic IV. of Denmark, 
and Frederic Augustus, King of Poland, and also Elector of 
Saxony ; and their hostile armies were on the point of invading 
his country. 

The greatness of the danger brought to light his great qualities. 
He vigorously prepared for war. His whole character changed. 
Quintus Curtius became his text-book, and Alexander his model. 
He spent no time in sports or magnificence. He clothed himself 
like a common soldier, whose hardships he resolved henceforth to 
share. He forswore the society and the influence of woman. 
He relinquished wine and all the pleasures of the table. Love of 
glory became his passion, and continued through life ; and this 
ever afterwards made him insensible to reproach, danger, toil, 
fear, hunger, and pain. Never was a more complete change 
effected in a man's moral character ; and never was an improved 
moral character consecrated to a worse end. He was not devoted 
to the true interests of his country, but to a selfish, base, and vain 
passion for military fame. 

But his conduct, at first, called forth universal admiration. His 
glorious and successful defence against enemies apparently over- 
whelming gave him a great military reputation, and secured for 
him the sympathies of Christendom. Had he died when he had 
repelled the Russian, the Danish, and the Polish armies, he would 
have secured as honorable an immortality as that of Gustavus 
Adolphus. But he was not permitted to die prematurely, as was 
his great ancestor. He lived long enough to become intoxicated 
with success, to make great political blunders, and to suffer the 
most fatal and mortifying misfortunes. 

The commencement of his military career was beautifully 
heroic. " Gentlemen," said the young monarch of eighteen to his 
counsellors, when he meditated desperate resistance, " I am re- 
solved never to begin an unjust war, and never to finish a just one, 
but with the destruction of my enemies." 



286 Charles's heroism. [chap, xviii. 

In six weeks he finished, after he had begun, the Danish war, 
having completely humbled his enemy, and succored his brother- 
in-law, the Duke of Holstein. 

His conflict with Peter has been presented, when with twenty 
thousand men he attacked and defeated eighty thousand Russians 
in their intrenchments, took one hundred and fifty pieces of can- 
non, and killed eighteen thousand men. The victory of Narva 
astonished all Europe, and was the most brilliant which had then 
been gained in the annals of modern warfare. 

Charles was equally successful against Frederic Augustus. He 
routed his Saxon troops, and then resolved to dethrone him, as 
King of Poland. And he succeeded so far as to induce the Polish 
Diet to proclaim the throne vacant. Augustus was obliged to fly, 
and Stanislaus Leczinski was chosen king in his stead, at the 
nomination of the Swedish conqueror. The country was sub- 
jugated, and Frederic Augustus became a fugitive. 

But Charles was not satisfied with expelling him from Poland. 
He resolved to attack him also in Saxony itself. Saxony was then, 
next to Austria, the most powerful of the German states. Never- 
theless, Saxony could not arrest the victorious career of Charles. 
The Saxons fled as he approached. He penetrated to the heart of 
the electorate, and the unfortunate Frederic Augustus was obliged 
to sue for peace, which was only granted on the most humiliating 
terms ; which were, that the elector should acknowledge Stanislaus 
as king of Poland ; that he should break all his treaties with 
Russia, and should deliver to the King of Sweden all the men who 
had deserted from his army. The humbled elector sought a 
personal interview with Charles, after he had signed the conditions 
of peace, with the hope of securing better terms. He found 
Charles in his jack boots, with a piece of black taffeta round his 
neck for a cravat, and clothed in a coarse blue coat with brass 
buttons. His conversation turned wholly on his jack boots ; and 
this trifling subject was the only one on which he would deign to 
converse with one of the most accomplished monarchs of his age. 

Charles had now humbled and defeated all his enemies. He 
should now have returned to Sweden, and have cultivated the arts 
of peace. But peace and civilization were far from his thoughts. 
The subjugation of all the northern powers became the dream of 



CHAP. XVIII.] HIS MISFORTUNES. 287 

his life. He invaded Russia, resolved on driving Peter from his 
throne. 

He was eminently successful in defensive war, and eminently 
unsuccessful in aggressive war. Providence benevolently but 
singularly comes to the aid of all his children in distress and 
despair. Men are gloriously strong in defending their rights ; but 
weak, in all their strength, when they assail the rights of others. 
So signal is this fact, that it blazes upon all the pages of history, 
and is illustrated in common life as well as in the affairs of 
nations. 

When Charles turned as an assailant of the rights of his 
enemies, his unfortunate reverses commenced. At the head of 
forty-three thousand veterans, loaded with the spoils of Poland and 
Saxony, he commenced his march towards Russia. He had 
another army in Poland of twenty thousand, and another in Fin- 
land of fifteen thousand. With these he expected to dethrone the 
czar. 

His mistakes and infatuation have been noticed, and his final 
defeat at Pultowa, a village at the eastern extremity of the Ukraine. 
This battle was more decisive than that of Narva ; for in the latter 
the career of Peter was only arrested, but in the former the 
strength of Charles was annihilated. And so would have been his 
hopes, had he been an ordinary man. But he was a madman, 
and still dreamed of victory, with only eighteen hundred men to 
follow his fortunes into Turkey, which country he succeeded in 
reaching. 

His conduct in Turkey was infamous and extraordinary. No 
reasonings can explain it. It was both ridiculous and provoking. 
At first, he employed himself in fomenting quarrels, and devising 
schemes to embark the sultan in his cause. Vizier after vizier 
was flattered and assailed. He rejected every overture for his 
peaceable return. He lingered five years in endless intrigues and 
negotiations, in order to realize the great dream of his life — - the 
dethronement of the czar. He lived recklessly on the bounty of 
the sultan, taking no hints that even imperial hospitality might be 
abused and exhausted. At last, his inflexible obstinacy and dan- 
gerous intrigues so disgusted his generous host, that he was urged 
to return, with the offer of a suitable escort, and a large sum of 



288 Charles's return to sweden. [chap, xviii. 

money. He accented and spent the twelve hundred purses, and 
still refused to return. The displeasure of the Sultan Achmet was 
now fairly excited. It was resolved upon by the Porte that he 
should be removed by force, since he would not be persuaded. 
But Charles resisted the troops of the sultan who were ordered to 
remove him. With sixty servants he desperately defended him- 
self against an army of janizaries, and killed twenty of them with 
his own hand ; and it was not until completely overwhelmed and 
prostrated that he hurled his sword into the air. He was now a 
prisoner of war, and not a guest ; but still he was treated with the 
courtesy and dignity due to a king, and conducted in a chariot 
covered with gold and scarlet to Adrianople. From thence he 
was removed to Demotica, where he renewed his intrigues, and 
zealously kept his bed, under pretence of sickness, for ten months. 

While he remained in captivity, Frederic Augustus recovered 
the crown of Poland, King Stanislaus was taken by the Turks, and 
Peter completed his conquest of Ingria, Livonia, and Finland, 
provinces belonging to Sweden. The King of Prussia also in- 
vaded Pomerania, and Frederic IV. of Denmark claimed Bremen, 
Holstein, and Scania. The Swedes were divested of all their 
conquests, and one hundred and fifty thousand of them became 
prisoners in foreign lands. 

Such were the reverses of a man who had resolved to play 
the part of Alexander, but who, sO long as he contented himself 
with defending his country against superior forces, was successful, 
and won a fame so great, that his misfortunes could never reduce 
him to contempt. 

When all was lost, he signified to the Turkish vizier his desire 
to return to Sweden. The vizier neglected no means to rid his 
master of so troublesome a person. Charles returned to his coun- 
try impoverished, but not discouraged. The charm of his name 
was broken. His soldiers were as brave and devoted as ever, but 
his resources were exhausted. He succeeded, however, in raising 
thirty-five thousand men, in order to continue his desperate game 
of conquest, not of defence. Europe beheld the extraordinary 
spectacle of this infatuated hero passing, in the depth of a northern 
winter, over the frozen hills and ice-bound rocks of Norway, with 
his devoted army, in order to conquer that hyperborean region. 



CHAP. XVIII.] HIS DEATH. 289 

So inured was he to cold and fatigue, that he slept in the open air, 
on a bed of straw, covered only with his cloak, while his soldiers 
dropped down dead at their posts from cold. In the month of 
December, 1718, he commenced the siege of Fredericshall, a 
place of great strength and importance, but, having exposed him- 
self unnecessarily, was killed by a ball from the fortress. Many, 
however, suppose that he was assassinated by his own officers, 
who were wearied with endless war, from which they saw nothing 
but disaster to their exhausted country. 

His death was considered as a signal for the general cessation 
of arms ; but Sweden never recovered from the mad enterprises 
of Charles XII. It has never since been a first class power. The 
national finances were disordered, the population decimated, and 
the provinces dismembered. Peter the Great gained what his 
rival lost. We cannot but compassionate a nation that has the 
misfortune to be ruled by such an absolute and infatuated monarch 
as was Charles XII. He did nothing for the civilization of his 
subjects, or to ameliorate the evils he caused. He was, like 
Alaric or Attila, a scourge of the Almighty, sent on earth for some 
mysterious purpose, to desolate and to destroy. But he died un- 
lamented and unhonored. No great warrior in modern times has 
received so little sympathy from historians, since he was not 
exalted by any great moral qualities of affection or generosity, 
and unscrupulously saqrificex^both friends and enemies to gratify 
a selfish and a depraved passion.. 



References. — Voltaire's History of Russia, a very attractive book, on 
account of its lively style. Voltaire's Life of Charles XII., also, is 
equally fascinating. There are tolerable histories of both Russia and 
Sweden in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia ; also in the Family Library. 
See, also, a History of Russia and Sweden in the Universal History. 
Russell's Modern Europe. 

25 



290 ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. [CHAP. XIX. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

GEORGE I., AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT 
WALPOLE. 

Queen Anne died in 1714, soon after the famous treaty of 
Utrecht was made, and by which the war of the Spanish Succes- 
sion was closed. She was succeeded by George L, Elector of 
Hanover. He was grandson of Elizabeth, only daughter of James 
I., who had married Frederic, the King of Bohemia. He was 
fifty-four years of age when he ascended the English throne, and 
imperfectly understood the language of the nation whom he was 
called upon to govern. 

George I. was not a sovereign who materially affected the in- 
terests or destiny of England ; nor was he one of those interesting 
characters that historians love to delineate. It is generally admit- 
ted that he was respectable, prudent, judicious, and moral ; amiable 
in his temper, sincere in his intercourse, and simple in his habits, — 
qualities which command respect, but not those which dazzle the 
people. It is supposed that he tolerably understood the English 
Constitution, and was willing to be fettered by the restraints which 
the parliaments imposed. He supported the Whigs, — the domi- 
nant party of the time, — and sympathized with liberal principles, 
so far as a monarch can be supposed to advance the interests of 
the people, and the power of a class ever hostile to the prerogatives 
of royalty. He acquiesced in the rule of his ministers — just 
what was expected of him, and just what was wanted of him ; 
and became — what every King of England, when popular, has 
since been — the gilded puppet of a powerful aristocracy. His 
social and constitutional influence was not, indeed, annihilated ; he 
had the choiee of ministers, and collected around his throne the 
great and proud, who looked to him as the fountain of all honor 
and dignity. But, still, from the accession of the house of Han- 
over, the political history of England is a history of the acts of 
parliaments, and of those ministers who represented the dominant 



CHAP. XIX.] SIR EOBERT WALPOLE. 291 

parties of the nation. Few nobles were as great as some under 
the Tudor and Stuart princes ; but the power of the aristocracy, 
as a class, was increased. From the time of George I. to Queen 
Victoria, the ascendency of the parliaments has been most marked ; 
composed chiefly of nobles, great landed proprietors, and gigantic 
commercial monopolists. The people have not been, indeed, 
unheard or unrepresented ; but, literally speaking, have had but a 
feeble influence, compared with the aristocracy. Parliaments and 
ministers, therefore, may be not unjustly said to be the repre- 
sentatives of the aristocracy — of the wise, the mighty, and the 
noble. 

When power passes from kings to nobles, then the acts of nobles 
constitute the genius of political history, as fully as the acts of 
kings constitute history when kings are absolute, and the acts of 
the people constitute history where the people are all-powerful. 

A notice, therefore, of that great minister who headed the Whig 
party of aristocrats, and who, as their organ, swayed the councils 
of England for nearly forty years, demands our attention. His 
political career commenced during the reign of Anne, and con- 
tinued during the reign of George I., and part of the reign of 
George II. George I., as a man or as a king, dwindled into insig- 
nificance, when compared with his prime minister, Sir Robert 
Walpole. And he is great, chiefly, as the representative of the 
Whigs ; that is, of the dominant party of rich and great men who 
sat in parliament ; a party of politicians who professed more lib- 
eral principles than the Tories, but who were equally aristocratic 
in the social sympathies, and powerful from aristocratic connec- 
tions. What did the great Dukes of Devonshire or Bedford care 
for the poor people, who, politically, composed no part of the 
nation ? But they were Whigs, and King George himself was a 
Whig. 

Sir Robert belonged to an ancient, wealthy, and honorable 
family ; was born 1676, and received his first degree at King's 
College, Cambridge, in 1700. He entered parliament almost 
immediately after, became an active member, sat on several com- 
mittees, and soon distinguished himself for his industry and ability. 
He was not eloquent, but acquired considerable skill as a debater. 
In 1705, Lord Godolphin, the prime minister of Anne, made him 



292 THE PRETENDER. [cHAP. XIX. 

one of the council to Prince George of Denmark ; in 1706, Marl- 
borough selected him as secretary of war ; in 1709, he was made 
treasurer of the navy ; and in 1710, he was the acknowledged 
leader of the House of Commons. He lost office, however, when 
the Whigs lost power, in 1710 ; was subjected to cruel political 
persecution, and even impeached, and imprisoned in the Tower. 
This period is memorable for the intense bitterness and severe 
conflicts between the Whigs and Tories ; not so much on account 
of difference of opinion on great political principles, as the struggle 
for the possession of place and power. 

On the accession of George I., Walpole became paymaster of 
the forces, one of the most lucrative offices in the kingdom. Town- 
send was made secretary of state. The other great official digni- 
taries were the Lords Cowper, Marlborough,Wharton, Sunderland, 
Devonshire, Oxford, and Somerset ; but Townsend and Walpole 
were the most influential. They impeached their great political 
enemies, Ormond and Bolingbroke, the most distinguished leaders 
of the Tory party. Bolingbroke, in genius and learning, had no 
equal in parliament, and was a rival of Walpole at Eton. 

The first event of importance, under the new ministry, was the 
invasion of Great Britain by the Pretender — the Prince James 
Frederic Edward Stuart, only son of James II. His early days 
were spent at St. Germain's, the palace which the dethroned mon- 
arch enjoyed by the hospitality of Louis XIV. He was educated 
under influences entirely unfavorable to the recovery of his natural 
inheritance, and was a devotee to the pope and the interests of 
absolutism. But he had his adherents, who were called Jacobites, 
and who were chiefly to be found in the Highlands of Scotland. 
In 1705, an unsuccessful effort had been made to regain the throne 
of his father, but the disasters attending it prevented him from 
making any renewed effort until the death of Anne. 

When she died, many discontented Tories fanned the spirit of 
rebellion ; and Bishop Atterbury, a distinguished divine, advocated 
the claims of the Pretender. Scotland was ripe for revolt. Alarm- 
ing riots took place in England. William III. was burned in effigy 
at Smithfield. The Oxford students pulled down a Presbyterian 
meeting-house, and the sprig of oak was publicly displayed on the 
29th of May. The Earl of Mar hurried into Scotland to fan the 



CHAP. XIX.] INVASION OF SCOTLAND. 293 

spirit of insurrection ; while the gifted, brilliant, and banished 
Bolingbroke joined the standard of the chevalier. The venerable 
and popular Duke of Ormond also assisted him with his counsels. 

Advised by these great nobles, assisted by the King of France, 
and flattered by the Jacobite faction, the Pretender made prepara- 
tions to recover his rights. His prospects were apparently better 
than were those of William, when he landed in England. The 
Earl of Mar was at the head of ten thousand men ; but the chev- 
alier was no general, and was unequal to his circumstances. When 
he landed in Scotland, he surrendered himself to melancholy and 
inaction. His sadness and pusillanimity dispirited his devoted band 
of followers. He retreated before inferior forces, and finally fled 
from the country which he had invaded. The French king was 
obliged to desert his cause, and the Pretender retreated to Italy, 
and died at the advanced age of seventy-nine, after witnessing the 
defeat of his son, Charles Edward, whose romantic career and 
misfortunes cannot now be mentioned. By the flight of the Pre- 
tender from Scotland, in 1715, the insurrection was easily sup- 
pressed, and the country was not molested by the intrigues of the 
Stuart princes for thirty years. 

The year which followed the invasion of Scotland was signalized 
by the passage of a great bill in parliament, which is one of the 
most important events in parliamentary histoiy. In 1716, the 
famous Septennial Act, which prolonged parliament from three to 
seven years, was passed. So many evils, practically, resulted 
from frequent elections, that the Whigs resolved to make a change ; 
and the change contributed greatly to the tranquillity of the coun- 
try, and the establishment of the House of Brunswick. The 
duration of the English parliament has ever since, constitutionally, 
been extended to seven years, but the average duration of parlia- 
ments has been six years — the term of office of the senators of 
the United States. 

After the passage of the Septennial Act, the efforts of Walpole 
were directed to a reduction of the national debt. He was then 
secretary of the treasury. But before he could complete his 
financial reforms, he was driven from office by the cabals of his 
colleagues, and the influence of the king's German favorites and 
mistresses. The Earl of Sunderland, who had married a daughter 
25* 



294 THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. [CHAP. XIX. 

of the Duke of Marlborough, was at the head of the cabal party, 
and was much endeared to the Whigs by his steady attachment to 
their principles. He had expected, and probably deserved, to be 
placed at the head of the administration. When disappointed, he 
bent all his energies to undermine Townsend and Walpole, and 
succeeded for a while. But Walpole's opposition to the new 
administration was so powerful, that it did not last long. Sunder- 
land had persuaded the king to renounce his constitutional prerog- 
ative of creating peers ; and a bill, called the Peerage Bill, was 
proposed, which limited the House of Lords to its actual existing 
number, the tendency of which was to increase the power and 
rank of the existing peers, and to raise an eternal bar to the 
aspirations of all commoners to the peerage, and thus widen the 
gulf between the aristocracy and the people. Walpole pre- 
sented these consequences so forcibly, and showed so clearly 
that the proposed bill would diminish the consequence of the 
landed gentry, and prove a grave to honorable merit, that the 
Commons were alarmed, and rejected the bill by a large and 
triumphant majority of two hundred and sixty-nine to one hundred 
and seventy-seven. 

The defeat of this bill, and the great financial embarrassments 
of the country, led to the restoration of Walpole to office. His 
genius was eminently financial, and his talents were precisely 
those which have ever since been required of a minister — those 
which characterized Sir Robert Peel and William Pitt. The great 
problem of any government is, how to raise money for its great 
necessities ; and the more complicated the relations of society are, 
the more difficult becomes the problem. 

At that period, the English nation were intoxicated and led 
astray by one of those great commercial delusions which so often 
take place in all civilized countries. No mania ever was more 
marked, more universal, and more fatal than that of the South Sea 
Company. The bubble had turned the heads of politicians, mer- 
chants, and farmers ; all classes, who had money to invest, took 
stock in the South Sea Company. The delusion, however, passed 
away ; England was left on the brink of bankruptcy, and a master 
financier was demanded by the nation, to extricate it from the effects 
of folly and madness. All eyes looked to Sir Robert Walpole, and 



CHAP. XIX.] THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY. 295 

he did all that financial skill could do, to repair the evils which 
speculation and gambling had caused. 

The desire for sudden wealth is one of the most common 
passions of our nature, and has given rise to more delusions 
than religious fanaticism, or passion for military glory. The 
South Sea bubble was kindred to that of John Law, who was the 
author of the Mississippi Scheme, which nearly ruined France in 
the reign of Louis XV., and which was encouraged by the Duke 
of Orleans, as a means of paying off the national debt. 

The wars of England had created a national debt, under the 
administration of Godolphin and Marlborough ; but which was not so 
large but that hopes were entertained of redeeming it. Walpole 
proposed to pay it off by a sinking fund ; but this idea, not very 
popular, was abandoned. It was then the custom for government 
to borrow of corporations, rather than of bankers, because the 
science of brokerage was not then understood, and because no 
individuals were sufficiently rich to aid materially an embarrassed 
administration. As a remuneration, companies were indulged with 
certain commercial advantages. As these advantages enabled 
companies to become rich, the nation always found it easy to bor- 
row. During the war of the Spanish Succession, the prime min- 
ister, Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, in order to raise money, 
projected the South Sea Company. This was in 1710, and the 
public debt was ten million pounds sterling, thought at that time to 
be insupportable. The interest on that debt was six per cent. In 
order to liquidate the debt, Oxford made the duties on wines, to- 
bacco, India goods, silks, and a few other articles, permanent. 
And, to allure the public creditor, great advantages were given to 
the new company, and money was borrowed of it at five per cent. 
This gain of one per cent., by money borrowed from the com- 
pany, was to constitute a sinking fund to pay the debt. 

But the necessities of the nation increased so rapidly, that a 
leading politician of the day, Sir John Blount, proposed that the 
South Sea Company should become the sole national creditor, and 
should loan to the government new sums, at an interest of four per 
cent. New monopolies were to be given to the company ; and it, 
on the other hand, offered to give a bonus of three million pounds 
to the government. The Bank of England, jealous of the propo- 



296 OPPOSITION OF WALPOLE. [CHAP. XIX. 

sal, offered five millions. The directors of the company then bid 
seven millions for a charter, nearly enough to pay off tVe whole 
redeemable debt of the nation ; which, however, could not be 
redeemed, so long as there were, in addition, irredeemable annui- 
ties to the amount of eight hundred thousand pounds yearly. It 
became, therefore, an object of the government to get rid, in the first 
place, of these irredeemable annuities ; and this could be effected, 
if the national creditor could be induced to accept of shares in the 
South Sea Company, instead of his irredeemable annuities, or, as 
they are now variously called, consols, stocks, and national funds. 
The capital was not desired ; only the interest on capital. So many 
monopolies and advantages were granted to the company, that the 
stock rose, and the national creditor was willing to part with his 
annuities for stock in the company. The offer was, therefore, ac- 
cepted, and the government got rid of irredeemable annuities, and 
obtained seven millions besides, but became debtor to the company. 
A company which could apparently afford to pay so large a bonus 
to government for its charter, and loan such large sums as the 
nation needed, in addition, at four per cent., was supposed to be 
making most enormous profits. Its stock rose rapidly in value. 
The national creditor hastened to get rid of irredeemable annui- 
ties — a national stock which paid five per cent. — in order to buy 
shares which might pay ten per cent. 

Walpole, then paymaster of the forces, opposed the scheme of 
Blount with all his might, showed that the acceptance of the 
company's proposal would countenance stockjobbing, would di- 
vert industry from its customary channels, and would hold out a 
dangerous lure to the unsuspecting to part with real for imaginary 
property. He showed the misery and confusion which existed in 
France from the adoption of similar measures, and proved that 
the whole success of the scheme must depend on the rise of the 
company's stock ; that, if there were no rise, the company could 
not afford the bonus, and would fail, and the obligation of the na- 
tion remain as before. But his reasonings were of no avail. All 
classes were infatuated. All people speculated in the South Sea 
stock. And, for a while, all people rejoiced ; for, as long as the 
stock continued to rise, all people were gainers. 

And the stock rose rapidly. It soon reached three hundred per 



CHAP. XIX.] MANIA FOE. SPECULATION. 297 

cent, above the original par value, and this in consequence of the 
promise of great dividends. All hastened to buy such lucrative 
property. The public creditor willingly gave up three hundred 
pounds of irredeemable stock for one hundred pounds of the com- 
pany's stock. 

And this would have been well, had there been a moral cer- 
tainty of the stockholder receiving a dividend of twenty per cent. 
But there was not this certainty, nor even a chance of it. Still, 
in consequence of the great dividends promised, even as high as 
fifty per cent., the stock gradually rose to one thousand per cent. 
Such was the general mania. And such was the extent of it, that 
thirty-seven millions of pounds sterling were subscribed on the 
company's books. 

And the rage for speculation extended to all other kinds of 
property ; and all sorts of companies were formed, some of the 
shares of which were at a premium of two thousand per cent. 
There were companies formed for fisheries, companies for making 
salt, for making oil, for smelting metals, for improving the breed 
of horses, for the planting of madder, for building ships against 
pirates, for the importation of jackasses, for fattening hogs, for 
wheels of perpetual motion, for insuring masters against losses 
from servants. There was one company for carrying on an 
undertaking of great advantage, but no one knew for what. The 
subscriber, by paying two guineas as a deposit, was to have one 
hundred pounds per annum for every hundred subscribed. It 
was declared, that, in a month, the particulars were to be laid 
open,, and the remainder of the subscription money was then to 
be paid. Notwithstanding this barefaced, swindling scheme, two 
thousand pounds were received one morning as a deposit. The 
next day, the proprietor was not to be found. 

Now, in order to stop these absurd speculations, and yet to mo- 
nopolize all the gambling in the kingdom, the directors of the 
South Sea Company obtained an act from parliament, empowering 
them to prosecute all the various bubble companies that were pro- 
jected. In a few days, all these bubbles burst. None were 
found to be buyers. Stock fell to nothing. 

But the South Sea Company made a blunder. The moral effect 
of the bursting of so many bubbles was to (jpen the eyes of the 



298 BURSTING OF THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. [CHAP. XIX. 

4 

nation to the greatest bubble of all. The credit of the South Sea 
Company declined. Stocks fell from one thousand per cent, to 
two hundred in a few days. All wanted to sell, nobody to buy. 
Bankers and merchants failed, and nobles and country gentlemen 
became impoverished. 

In this general distress, Walpole was summoned to power, in 
order to extricate the nation, on the eve of bankruptcy. He 
proposed a plan, which was adopted, and which saved the credit 
of the nation. He ingrafted nine millions of the South Sea stock 
into the Bank of England, and nine millions more into the East 
India Company ; and government gave up the seven millions of 
bonus which the company had promised. 

By this assistance, the company was able to fulfil its engage- 
ments, although all who purchased stock when it had arisen be- 
yond one hundred per cent, of its original value, lost money. It 
is strange that the stock, after all, remained at a premium of one 
hundred per cent. ; of course, the original proprietors gained one 
hundred per cent., and those who paid one hundred per cent, pre- 
mium lost nothing. But these constituted a small fraction of the 
people who had speculated, and who paid from one hundred to 
nine hundred per cent, premium. Government, too, gained by 
reducing interest on irredeemable bonds from five to four percent., 
although it lost the promised bonus of seven millions. 

The South Sea bubble did not destroy the rage for speculation, 
although it taught many useful truths — that national prosperity is 
not advanced by stockjobbing ; that financiers, however great 
their genius, generally overreach themselves ; that great dividends 
are connected with great risk ; that circumstances beyond 
human control will defeat the best-laid plan ; that it is better 
to repose upon the operation of the ordinaiy laws of trade ; and 
that nothing but strict integrity and industry will succeed in the 
end. From the time of Sir Robert Walpole, money has seldom 
been worth, in England, over five per cent., and larger dividends 
on vested property have generally been succeeded by heavy losses, 
however plausible the promises and clear the statements of stock- 
jobbers and speculators. 

After the explosion of the South Sea Company, Walpole became 
possessed of almost lyilimited power. And one of the first objects 



CHAP. XIX.] ENLIGHTENED POLICY OF WALPOLE. 299 

to which he directed attention, after settling the finances, was the 
removal of petty restrictions on commerce. He abolished the ex- 
port duties on one hundred and six articles of British manufacture, 
and allowed thirty-eight articles of raw material to be imported 
duty free. This regulation was made to facilitate trade with the 
colonies, and prevent them from manufacturing ; and this regula- 
tion accomplished the end desired. Both England and the colonies 
were enriched. It was doubtless the true policy of British states- 
men then, as now, to advance the commercial, manufacturing, and 
agricultural interests of Great Britain, rather than meddle with for- 
eign wars, or seek glory on the field of battle. The principles 
of Sir Robert Walpole were essentially pacific ; and under his 
administration, England made a great advance in substantial pros- 
perity. In this policy he surpassed all the statesmen who preceded 
or succeeded him, and this constituted his glory and originality. 

But liberal and enlightened as was the general course of Wal- 
pole, he still made blunders, and showed occasional illiberality. 
He caused a fine of one hundred thousand pounds to be inflicted 
on the Catholics, on the plea that they were a disaffected body. 
He persecuted Bishop Atterbury, and permitted Bolingbroke, with 
his restless spirit of intrigue, to return to his country, and to be 
reinstated in his property and titles. He flattered the Duchess of 
Kendall, the mistress of the king, and stooped to all the arts of 
corruption and bribery. There never was a period of greater 
political corruption than during the administration of this minister. 
Sycophancy, meanness, and hypocrisy were resorted to by the 
statesmen of the age, who generally sought their own interests 
rather than the welfare of the nation. There were, however, 
exceptions. Townsend, the great rival and coadjutor of Walpole, 
retired from office with an unsullied fame for integrity and disin- 
terestedness ; and Walpole, while he bribed others, did not enrich 
himself. 

King George I. died on the 11th of June, 1727, suddenly, by 
apoplexy, and was succeeded by his son George II., a man who 
resembled his father in disposition and character, and was superior 
to him in knowledge of the English constitution, though both were 
inclined to steer the British bark by the Hanoverian rudder. Like 
his father, he was reserved, phlegmatic, cautious, sincere, fond of 



300 EAST INDIA COMPANY. [CHAP. XIa. 

4 L 

business, economical, and attached to Whig principles. He was 
fortunate in his wife, Queen Caroline, one of the most excellent 
women of the age, learned, religious, charitable, and sensible ; 
the patroness of divines and scholars ; fond of discussion on 
metaphysical subjects, and a correspondent of the distinguished 
Leibnitz. 

The new king disliked Walpole, but could not do without him, 
and therefore continued him in office. Indeed, the king had the 
sense to perceive that England was to be governed only by the 
man in whom the nation had confidence. 

In 1730, Walpole rechartered the East India Company, the 
most gigantic monopoly in the history of nations. As early as 
1599, an association had been formed in England for trade to the 
East Indies. This association was made in consequence of the 
Dutch and Portuguese settlements and enterprises, which aroused 
the commercial jealousy of England. The capital was sixty-eight 
thousand pounds. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth gave the company a 
royal charter. By this charter, the company obtained the right of 
purchasing land, without limit, in India, and the monopoly of the 
trade for fifteen years. But the company contended with many ob- 
stacles. The first voyage was made by four ships and one pinnace, 
having on board twenty-eight thousand pounds in bullion, and seven 
thousand pounds in merchandise, such as tin, cutlery, and glass. 

During the civil wars, the company's affairs were embarrassed, 
owing to the unsettled state of England. On the accession of 
Charles II., the company obtained a new charter, which not only 
confirmed the old privileges, but gave it the power of making 
peace and war with the native princes of India. The capital stock 
was increased to one million five hundred thousand pounds. 

Much opposition was made by Bolingbroke and the Tories to 
the recharter of this institution ; but the ministry carried their 
point, and a new charter was granted on the condition of the com- 
pany paying to government two hundred thousand pounds, and 
reducing the interest of the government debts one per cent, per 
annum. By this time, the company, although it had not greatly 
enlarged its jurisdiction in India, had accumulated great wealth. 
Its powers and possessions will be more fully treated when the 
victories of Clive shall be presented. 



CHAP. XIX.] RESIGNATION OF TOWNSEND. 301 

About this time, the Duke of Newcastle came into the cabinet, 
whose future administration will form the subject of a separate 
chapter. 

In 1730 also occurred the disagreement between Walpole and 
Lord Townsend, which ended in the resignation of the latter, a 
man whose impetuous and frank temper ill fitted him to work with 
so cautious and non-committal a statesman as his powerful rival. 
He passed the evening of his days in rural pursuits and agricul- 
tural experiments, keeping open house, devoting himself to his 
family and friends, never hankering after the power he had lost, 
never even revisiting London, and finding his richest solace in lit- 
erature and simple agricultural pleasures — the pattern of a lofty 
and cultivated nobleman. 

The resignation of Townsend enabled Walpole to take more 
part in foreign negotiations ; and he exerted his talents, like Fleury 
in France, to preserve the peace of Europe. The peace policy 
of Walpole entitles him to the gratitude of his country. More 
than any other man of his age, he apprehended the true glory and 
interests of nations. Had Walpole paid as much attention to the 
intellectual improvement of his countrymen, as he did to the re- 
finements of material life and to physical progress, he would have 
merited still higher praises. But he despised learning, and neg- 
lected literary men. And they turned against him and his admin- 
istration, and, by their sarcasm and invective, did much to under- 
mine his power. Pope, Swift, and Gay might have lent him 
powerful aid by their satirical pen ; but he passed them by with 
contemptuous indifference, and they gave to Bolingbroke what they 
withheld from Walpole. 

Next to the pacific policy of the minister, the most notice- 
able peculiarity of his administration was his zeal to improve the 
finances. He opposed speculations, and sought a permanent 
revenue from fixed principles. He regarded the national debt as 
a great burden, and strove to abolish it ; and, when that was found 
to be impracticable, sought to prevent its further accumulation. 
He was not, indeed, always true to his policy ; but he pursued it, 
on the whole, consistently. He favored the agricultural interests, 
and was inclined to raise the necessary revenue by a tax on articles 
used, rather than by direct taxation on property or income, or arti- 
26 



302 UNPOPULARITY OF WALPOLE. [CHAP. XIX. 

4 

cles imported. Hence he is the father of the excise scheme — a 
scheme still adopted in England, but which would be intolerable 
in this country. In this scheme, his grand object was to ease the 
landed proprietor, and to prevent smuggling, by making smuggling 
no object. But the opposition to the Excise Bill was so great that 
Sir Robert abandoned it ; and this relinquishment of his favorite 
scheme is one of the most striking peculiarities of his administra- 
tion. He never pushed matters to extremity. He ever yielded 
to popular clamor. He perceived that an armed force would be 
necessary in order to collect the excise, and preferred to yield his 
cherished measures to run the danger of incurring greater evils 
than financial embarrassments. His spirit of conciliation, often 
exercised in the plenitude of power, prolonged his reign. This 
policy was the result of immense experience and practical knowl- 
edge of human nature, of which he was a great master. 

But Sir Robert was not allowed to pursue to the end his pacific, 
any more than his financial policy. The clamors of interested 
merchants, the violence of party spirit, and the dreams of heroic 
grandeur on the part of politicians, overcame the repugnance of 
the minister, and plunged England in a disastrous Spanish war ; 
and a war soon succeeded by that of the Austrian Succession, in 
which Maria Theresa was the injured, and Frederic the Great the 
offending party. But this war, which was carried on chiefly 
during the subsequent administration, will be hereafter alluded to. 

Although Walpole was opposed by some of the ablest men in 
England — by Pulteney, Sir William Windham, and the Lords 
Chesterfield, Carteret, and Bolingbroke, his power was almost 
absolute from 1730 to 1740. His most powerful assistance was 
derived from Mr. Yorke, afterwards the Lord Chancellor Hard- 
wicke, one of the greatest lawyers that England has produced. 

In 1740, his power began to decline, and rapidly waned. He 
lost a powerful friend and protector by the death of Queen Caro- 
line, whose intercessions with the king were ever listened to with 
respectful consideration. But he had almost insurmountable 
obstacles to contend with — the distrust of the king, the bitter 
hatred of the Prince of Wales, the violent opposition of the lead- 
ing statesmen in parliament, and universal envy. Moreover, he 
had grown careless and secure. He fancied that no one could 



CHAP. XIX.] DECLINE OF HIS POWER. ' 303 

rule England but himself. But hatred, opposition, envy, and un- 
successful military operations, forced him from his place. No 
shipwrecked pilot ever clung to the rudder of a sinking ship with 
more desperate tenacity than did this once powerful minister to 
the helm of state. And he did not relinquish it until he was 
driven from it by the desertion of all his friends, and the general 
clamor of the people. The king, however, appreciated the value 
of his services, and created him Earl of Oxford, a dignity which 
had been offered him before, but which, with self-controlling 
policy, he had unhesitatingly declined. Like Sir Robert Peel in 
later times, he did not wish to be buried in the House of Lords. 

His retirement (1742) amid the beeches and oaks of his country 
seat was irksome and insipid. He had no taste for history, or 
science, or elegant literature, or quiet pleasures. His tumultuous 
public life had engendered other tastes. " I wish," said he to a 
friend, " I took as much delight in reading as you do. It would 
alleviate my tedious hours." But the fallen minister, though 
uneasy and restless, was not bitter or severe. He retained his 
good humor to the last, and to the last discharged all the rites 
of an elegant hospitality. Said his enemy, Pope, — 

" Seen him I have, but in his happier hour 
Of social pleasure — ill exchanged for power ; 
Seen him, uncumbered by the venal tribe, 
Smile without art, and win without a bribe." 

He had the habit of " laughing the heart's laugh," which it is 
only in the power of noble natures to exercise. His manners 
were winning, his conversation frank, and his ordinary intercourse 
divested of vanity and pomp. He had many warm personal 
friends, and did not enrich himself, as Marlborough did, while he 
enriched those who served him. He kept a public table at Stough- 
ton, to which all gentlemen in the country had free access. He was 
fond of hunting and country sports, and had more taste for pictures 
than for books. He was not what would be called a man of 
genius or erudition, but had a sound judgment, great sagacity, 
wonderful self-command, and undoubted patriotism. As a wise 
and successful ruler, he will long be held in respect, though he 
will never secure veneration. 



304 JOHN WESLEY. [CHAP. XIX. 

It was during the latter years of the administration of Walpole, 
that England was electrified by the preaching of Whitefield and 
Wesley, and the sect of the Methodists arose, which has exercised a 
powerful influence on the morals, religion, and social life of England. 

John Wesley, who may rank with Augustine, Pelagius, Calvin, 
Arminius, or Jansen, as the founder of a sect, was demanded by 
the age in which he lived. Never, since the Reformation, was the 
state of religion so cold in England. The Established Church had 
triumphed over all her enemies. Puritanism had ceased to be- 
come offensive, and had even become respectable. The age of 
fox-hunting parsons had commenced, and the clergy were the 
dependants of great families, easy in their manners, and fond of 
the pleasures of the table. They were not expected to be very 
great scholars, or very grave companions. If they read the 
service with propriety, did not scandalize their cause by gross 
indulgences, and did not meddle with the two exciting subjects of 
all ages, — politics and religion, — they were sure of peace and 
plenty. But their churches were comparatively deserted, and in- 
fidel opinions had been long undermining respect for the institu- 
tions and ministers of religion. Swearing and drunkenness were 
fashionable vices among the higher classes, while low pleasures 
and lamentable ignorance characterized the people. The dissent- 
ing sects were more religious, but were formal and cold. Their 
ministers preached, too often, a mere technical divinity, or a lax 
system of ethics. The Independents were inclined to a frigid Ar- 
minianism, and the Presbyterians were passing through the change 
from ultra Calvinism to Arianism and Socinianism. 

The reformation was not destined to come from Dissenters, but 
from the bosom of the Established Church, a reformation which 
bore the same relation to Protestantism as that effected by St. 
Francis bore to Roman Catholicism in the thirteenth century ; a 
reformation among the poorer classes, who did not wish to be 
separated from the Church Establishment. 

John Wesley belonged to a good family, his father being a 
respectable clergyman in a market town. He was born in 1703, 
was educated at Oxford, and for the church. At the age of 
twenty, he received orders from the Bishop of Oxford, and was, 
shortly after, chosen fellow of Lincoln College, and then Greek 
lecturer. 



CHAP. XIX.] EARLY LIFE OF WESLEY. 305 

While at Oxford, he and his brother Charles, who was also a 
fellow and a fine scholar, excited the ridicule of the University for 
the strictness of their lives, and their methodical way of living, 
which caused their companions to give them the name of Method- 
ists. Two other young men joined them — James Hervey, author 
of the Meditations, and George Whitefield. The fraternity at 
length numbered fifteen young men, the members of which met 
frequently for religious purposes, visited prisons and the sick, 
fasted zealously on Wednesdays and Fridays, and bound themselves 
by rules, which, in many respects, resembled those which Ignatius 
Loyola imposed on his followers. The Imitation of Christ, by A 
Kempis, and Taylor's Holy Living, were their grand text-books, 
both of which were studied ' for their devotional spirit. But the 
Holy Living was the favorite book of Wesley, who did not fully ap- 
prove of the rigid asceticism of the venerable mystic of the Middle 
Ages. The writings of William Law, also, had great influence 
on the mind of Wesley ; but his religious views were not matured 
until after his return from Georgia, where he had labored as a mis- 
sionary, under the auspices of Oglethorpe. The Moravians, whom 
he met with both in America and Germany, completed the work 
which Taylor had begun ; and from their beautiful establishments 
he also learned many principles of that wonderful system of gov- 
ernment which he so successfully introduced among his followers. 

Wesley continued his labors with earnestness ; but these were 
also attended with some extravagances, which Dr. Potter, the 
worthy Bishop of London, and other Churchmen, could not under- 
stand. And though he preached with great popular acceptance, 
and gained wonderful eclat, though he was much noticed in society, 
and even dined with the king at Hampton Court, and with the 
Prince of Wales at St. James's, still the churches were gradually 
shut against him. When Whitefield returned from Georgia, hav- 
ing succeeded Wesley as a missionary in that colony, and finding 
so much opposition from the dignitaries of the Church, although 
neither he nor Wesley had seceded from the Church ; and, above 
all, excited by the popular favor he received, — for the churches 
would not hold half who flocked to hear him preach, — he resolved 
to address the people in the open air. The excitement he pro- 
duced was unparalleled. Near Bristol, he sometimes assembled 
26* 



306 WHITEFIELD. [CHAP. XIX. 



4 



as many as twenty thousand. But they were chiefly the colliers, 
drawn forth from their subterranean working places. But his 
eloquence had equal fascination for the people of London and the 
vicinity. In Moorfields, on Kennington Common, and on Black- 
heath, he sometimes drew a crowd of forty thousand people, all 
of whom could hear his voice. He could draw tears from Hume, 
and money from Dr. Franklin. He could convulse a congregation 
with terror, and then inspire them with the brightest hopes. He 
was a greater artist than Bossuet or Bourdaloue. He never lost 
his self-possession, or hesitated for appropriate language. But his 
great power was in his thorough earnestness, and almost inspired 
enthusiasm. No one doubted his sincerity, and all were impressed 
with the spirituality and reality of the great truths which he pre- 
sented. And wonderful results followed from his preaching, and 
from that of his brethren. A great religious revival spread over 
England, especially among the middle and lower classes, the 
effects of which last to this day. 

Whitefield was not so learned, or intellectual as Wesley. He 
was not so great a genius. But he had more eloquence, and more 
warmth of disposition. Wesley was a system maker, a metaphy- 
sician, a logician. He was also profoundly versed in the knowl- 
edge of human nature, and curiously adapted his system to the 
wants and circumstances of that class of people over whom he had 
the greatest power. Both Wesley and Whitefield were demanded 
by their times, and only such men as they were could have suc- 
ceeded. They were reproached for their extravagances, and for 
a zeal which was confounded with fanaticism ; but, had they been 
more proper, more prudent, more yielding to the prejudices of the 
great, they would not have effected so much good for their coun- 
try. So with Luther. Had he possessed a severer taste, had he 
been more of a gentleman, or more of a philosopher, or even more 
humble, he would not so signally have succeeded. Germany, and 
the circumstances of the age, required a rough, practical, bold, 
impetuous reformer to lead a movement against dignitaries and 
venerable corruptions. England, in the eighteenth century, 
needed a man to arouse the common people to a sense of their 
spiritual condition ; a man who would not be trammelled by his 
church ; who would not be governed by the principles of expedi- 



CHAP. XIX.] INSTITUTION OF WESLEY. 307 

ency ; who would trust in God, and labor under peculiar discour- 
agement and self-denial. 

Wesley was like Luther in another respect. He quarrelled with 
those who would not conform to all his views, whether they had 
been friends or foes. He had been attracted by the Moravians. 
Their simplicity, fervor, and sedateness had won his regard. But 
when the Moravians maintained that there was delusion in those 
ravings which Wesley considered as the work of grace, when 
they asserted that sin would remain with even regenerated man 
until death, and that it was in vain to expect the purification of the 
soul by works of self-denial, Wesley opposed them, and slandered 
them. He also entered the lists against his friend and fellow- 
laborer, Whitefield. The latter did not agree with him respecting 
perfection, nor election, nor predestination ; and, when this disa- 
greement had become fixed, an alienation took place, succeeded 
by actual bitterness and hostility. Wesley, however, in his latter 
days, manifested greater charity and liberality, and was a model 
of patience and gentleness. He became finally reconciled to 
Whitefield, and the union continued until the death of the latter, at 
Newburyport, in 1770. 

The greatness of Wesley consisted in devising that wonderful 
church polity which still governs the powerful and numerous sect 
which he founded. It is from the system of the Methodists, rather 
than from their theological opinions, that their society spread so 
rapidly over Great Britain and America, and which numbered 
at his death, seventy-one thousand persons in England, and forty- 
eight thousand in this country. 

And yet his institution was not wholly a matter of calculation, 
but was gradually developed as circumstances arose. When con- 
tributions were made towards building a meeting-house in Bristol, 
it was observed that most of the brethren were poor, and could 
afford but little. Then said one of the number, " Put eleven of 
the poorest with me, and if they give any thing, it is well. I will 
call on each of them weekly, and if they give nothing, I will give 
for them as well as for myself." This suggested the idea of a 
system of supervision. In the course of the weekly calls, the 
persons who had undertaken for a class discovered some irregu- 
larities among those for whose contributions they were responsible, 



308 ITINERANCY. [CHAP. XIX. 

and reported them^o Wesley. He saw, at once, the advantage 
to be derived from such an arrangement. It was what he had 
long desired. He called together the leaders, and desired that 
each should make a particular inquiry into the behavior of all 
under their respective supervision. They did so. The custom 
was embraced by the whole body, and became' fundamental. But 
it was soon found to be inconvenient to visit each person separately 
in his own house weekly, and then it was determined that all the 
members of the class should assemble together weekly, when 
quarrels could be made up, and where they might be mutually 
profited by each other's prayers and exhortations. Thus the 
system of classes and class-leaders arose, which bears the same 
relation to the society at large that town meetings do to the state 
or general government in the American democracy — which, as it 
is known, constitute the genius of our political institutions. 

Itinerancy also forms another great feature of Methodism ; and 
this resulted from accident. But it is the prerogative and pecu- 
liarity of genius to take advantage of accidents and circumstances. 
It cannot create them. Wesley had no church ; but, being an 
ordained clergyman of the Establishment, and a fellow of a college 
beside, he had the right to preach in any pulpit, and in any dio- 
cese. But the pulpits were closed against him, in consequence of 
his peculiarities ; so he preached wherever he could collect a con- 
gregation. Itinerancy and popularity gave him notoriety, and flat- 
tered ambition, of which he was not wholly divested. He and 
his brethren wandered into every section of England, from the 
Northumbrian moorlands to the innermost depths of the Cornish 
mines, in the most tumultuous cities and in the most unfrequented 
hamlets. 

As he was the father of the sect, all appointments were made 
by him, and, as he deserved respect and influence, the same be- 
came unbounded. When power was vested to an unlimited extent 
in his hands, and when the society had become numerous and 
scattered over a great extent of territory, he divided England into 
circuits, and each circuit had a certain number of ministers ap- 
pointed to it. But he held out no worldly rewards as lures. The 
conditions which he imposed were hard. The clergy were to labor 
with patience and assiduity on a mean pittance, with no hope of 



CHAP. XIX.] GREAT INFLUENCE AND POWER OF WESLEY. 309 

wealth or ease. Rewards were to be given them by no earthly- 
judge. The only recompense for toil and hunger was that of the 
original apostles — the approval of their consciences and the favor 
of Heaven. 

To prevent the overbearing intolerance and despotism of the 
people, the chapels were not owned by the congregation, nor even 
vested in trustees, but placed at the absolute disposal of Mr. Wes- 
ley and the conference. 

If the rule of Wesley was not in accordance with democratic 
principles, still its perpetuation in the most zealous of democratic 
communities, and its escape, thus far, from the ordinary fate of all 
human institutions, — that of corruption and decay, — shows its re- 
markable wisdom, and also the great virtue of those who have 
administered the affairs of the society. It effected, especially in 
England, — what the Established Church and the various form of 
Dissenters could not do, — the religious renovation of the lower 
classes ; it met their wants ; it stimulated their enthusiasm. And 
while Methodism promoted union and piety among the people, espe- 
cially those who were ignorant and poor, it did not undermine their 
loyalty or attachment to the political institutions of the country. 
Other Dissenters were often hostile to the government, and have 
been impatient under the evils which have afflicted England ; but 
the Methodists, taught subordination to superiors and rulers, and 
have ever been patient, peaceful, and quiet. 



References. — Lord Mahon's History should be particularly read ; also 
Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole. Consult Smollett's and Tindall's History 
of England, and Belsham's History of George II. Smyth's Lectures are 
very valuable on this period of English history. See, also, Bolingbroke's 
State of Parties ; Burke's Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs ; Lord 
Chesterfield's Characters ; and Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates. Remi- 
niscences by Horace Walpole. For additional information respecting the 
South Sea scheme, see Anderson's and Macpherson's Histories of Com- 
merce, and Smyth's Lectures. The lives of the Pretenders have been 
well written by Bay and Jesse. Tytler's History of Scotland should 
be consulted; arid Waverley may be read with profit. The rise of the 
Methodists, the great event of the reign of George I., has been generally 
neglected. Lord Mahon has, however, written a valuable chapter. See 
also Wesley's Letters and Diary, and a Life, by Southey and Moore. 



310 COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AND THE EAST INDIES. 

During the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, the English 
colonies in America, and the East India Company's settlements, 
began to attract the attention of ministers, and became of consid- 
erable political importance. It is, therefore, time to consider the 
histoiy of colonization, both in the East and West, and not only 
by the English, but by the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Dutch, 
and the French. 

The first settlements in the new world by Europeans, and their 
conquests in the unknown regions of the old, were made chiefly 
in view of commercial advantages. The love of money, that root 
of all evil, was overruled by Providence in the discoveiy of new 
worlds, and the diffusion of European civilization in countries 
inhabited by savages, or worn-out Oriental races. But the mere 
ignoble love of gain was not the only motive which incited the 
Europeans to navigate unknown oceans and colonize new conti- 
nents. There was also another, and this was the spirit of enter- 
prise, which magically aroused the European mind in the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries. Marco Polo, when he visited the East ; 
the Portuguese, when they doubled the Cape of Good Hope ; Co- 
lumbus, when he discovered America ; and Magellan, when he 
entered the South Sea, were moved by curiosity and love of sci- 
ence, more than by love of gold. But the vast wealth, which the 
newly-discovered countries revealed, stimulated, in the breasts of 
the excited Europeans, the powerful passions of ambition and 
avarice ; and the needy and grasping monarchs of Spain, Portu- 
gal, Holland, France, and England patronized adventurers to the 
new El Dorado, and furnished them with ships and stores, in the 
hope of receiving a share of the profits of their expedition. And 
they were not disappointed. Although many disasters happened 
to the early navigators, still country after country was added to 
the possessions of European kings, and vast sums of gold and 



CHAP. XX.] SPANISH CONQUESTS AND SETTLEMENTS. 311 

silver were melted into European coin. No conquests were ever 
more sudden and brilliant than those of Cortez and Pizarro, nor 
did wealth ever before so suddenly enrich the civilized world. But 
sudden and unlawful gains produced their natural fruit. All the 
worst evils which flow from extravagance, extortion, and pride pre- 
vailed in the old world and the new ; and those advantages and 
possessions, which had been gained by enterprise, were turned into 
a curse, for no wealth can balance the vices of avarice, injustice, 
and cruelty. 

The most important of all the early settlements of America 
were made by the Spaniards. Their conquests were the most 
brilliant, and proved the most worthless. The spirit which led 
to their conquests and colonization was essentially that of avarice 
and ambition. It must, however, be admitted that religious zeal, 
in some instances, was the animating principle of the adventurers 
and of those what patronized them. 

The first colony was established in Hispaniola, or, as it was 
afterwards called, St. Domingo, a short time after the discovery 
of America by Columbus. The mines of the island were, at that 
period, very productive, and the aggressive Spaniards soon com- 
pelled the unhappy natives to labor in them, under their governor, 
Juan Ponce de Leon. But Hispaniola was not sufficiently large or 
productive to satisfy the cupidity of the governor, and Porto Rico 
was conquered and enslaved. Cuba also, in a few years, 'was 
added to the dominions of Spain. 

At length, the Spaniards, who had explored the coasts of the 
Main land, prepared to invade and conquer the populous territories 
of Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico. The people whom he gov- 
erned had attained a considerable degree of civilization, having a 
regular government, a system of laws, .and an established priest- 
hood. They were not ignorant of the means of recording great 
events, and possessed considerable skill in many useful and orna- 
mental arts. They were rich in gold and silver, and their cities 
were ornamented with palaces and gardens. But their riches 
were irresistible objects of desire to the European adventurers, 
and, therefore, proved their misfortune. The story of their con- 
quest by Fernando Cortez need not here be told ; familiarized as 
are all readers and students with the exquisite and artistic narra- 



312 PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. [CHAP. XX. 



4 



if 



tive of the great American historian, whose work and whose fame 
can only perish with the language itself. 

About ten years after the conquest of Mexico, Pizarro landed 
in Peru, which country was soon added to the dominions of Philip 
II. And the government of that country was even more oppres- 
sive and unjust than that of Mexico. All Indians between the 
ages of fifteen and fifty were compelled to work in the mines ; and 
so dreadful was the forced labor, that four out of five of those 
who worked in them were supposed to perish annually. There 
was no limit to Spanish rapacity and cruelty, and it was exercised 
over all the other countries which were subdued — Chili, Florida, 
and the West India Islands. 

Enormous and unparalleled quantities of the precious metals 
were sent to Spain from the countries of the new world. But, 
from the first discovery of Peru and Mexico, the mother countiy 
declined in wealth and political importance. With the increase 
of gold, the price of labor and of provision, and of all articles of 
manufacturing industry, also increased, and nearly in the same 
ratio. The Spaniards were insensible to this truth, and, instead 
of cultivating the soil or engaging in manufactures, were contented 
with the gold which came from the colonies. This, for a while, 
enriched them ; but it was soon scattered over all Christendom, and 
was exchanged for the necessities of life. Industry and art de- 
clined, and those countries alone were the gainers which produced 
those articles which Spain was obliged to purchase. 

Portugal soon rivalled Spain in the extent and richness of colo- 
nial possessions. Brazil was discovered in 1501, and, in about 
half a century after, was colonized. The native Brazilians, infe- 
rior in civilization to the Mexicans and Peruvians, were still less 
able than they to resist the arms of the Europeans. They were 
gradually subdued, and their beautiful and fertile country came 
into possession of the victors. But the Portuguese also extended 
their empire in the East, as well as in the West. After the discovery 
of a passage round the Cape of Good Hope, by Vasco de Gama, 
the early navigators sought simply to be enriched by commerce 
with the Indies. They found powerful rivals in the Saracens, 
who had heretofore monopolized the trade. In order to secure 
their commerce, and also to protect themselves against their rivals 



CHAP. XX.] POKTUGUESE SETTLEMENTS. 313 

and enemies, the Portuguese, under the guidance of Albuquerque, 
procured a grant of land in India, from one of the native princes. 
Soon after, Goa was reduced, and became the seat of govern- 
ment ; and territorial acquisition commenced, which, having been 
continued nearly three centuries by the various European powers, 
is still progressive. In about sixty years, the Portuguese had 
established a great empire in the East, which included the coasts 
and islands of the Persian Gulf, the whole Malabar and Coroman- 
del coasts, the city of Malacca, and numerous islands of the In- 
dian Ocean. They had effected a settlement in China, obtained a 
free trade with the empire of Japan, and received tribute from 
the rich Islands of Ceylon, Java, and Sumatra. 

The same moral effects happened to Portugal, from the posses- 
sion of the Indies, that the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro pro- 
duced on Spain. Goa was the most depraved spot in the world ; 
and the vices which wealth engendered, wherever the Europeans 
formed a settlement, can now scarcely be believed. When Portu- 
gal fell under the dominion of Philip II., the ruin of her settle- 
ments commenced. They were supplanted by the Dutch, who 
were more moral, more united and enterprising, though they pro- 
voked, by their arrogance and injustice, the hostility of the Eastern 
princes. 

The conquests and settlements of the Dutch rapidly succeeded 
those of the Portuguese. In 1595, Cornelius Houtman sailed, 
with a well-provided fleet, for the land of gems and spices. A 
company was soon incorporated, in Holland, for managing the 
Indian trade. Settlements were first made in the Moluccas Islands, 
which soon extended to the possession of the Island of Java, and 
to the complete monopoly of the spice trade. The Dutch then 
gained possession of the Island of Ceylon, which they retained 
until it was wrested from them by the English. But their empire 
was- only maintained at a vast expense of blood and treasure ; 
nor were they any exception to the other European colonists and 
adventurers, in the indulgence of all those vices which degrade 
our nature. 

Neither the French nor the English made any important con- • 
quests in the East, when compared with those of the Portuguese 
and Dutch. Nor did their acquisitions in America equal those of 
27 



314 EARLY ENGLISH ENTERPRISE. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

the Spaniards. But they were more important in their ultimate 
results. 

English enterprise was manifested shortly after the first voyage 
of Columbus. Henry VII. was sufficiently enlightened, envious, 
and avaricious, to listen to the proposals of a Venetian, resident in 
Bristol, by the name of Cabot ; and, in 1495, he commissioned 
him to sail under the banner of England, to take possession of any 
new countries he might discover. Accordingly, in about two years 
after, Cabot, with his second son, Sebastian, embarked at Bristol, 
in one of the king's ships, attended by four smaller vessels, 
equipped by the merchants of that enterprising city. 

Impressed with the idea of Columbus, and other early navigators, 
that the West India Islands were not far from the Indian continent, 
he concluded that, if he steered in a more northerly direction, he 
should reach India by a shorter course than that pursued by the 
great discoverer. Accordingly, sailing in that course, he discov- 
ered Newfoundland and Prince Edwards', and, soon after, the coast 
of North America, along which he sailed, from Labrador to Vir- 
ginia. But, disappointed in not finding a westerly passage to 
India, he returned to England, without attempting, either by settle- 
ment or conquest, to gain a footing on the great continent which 
the English were the second to visit, of all the European nations. 

England was prevented, by various circumstances, from deriving 
immediate advantage from the discoveiy. The unsettled state of 
the country ; the distractions arising from the civil wars, and after- 
wards from the Reformation ; the poverty of the people, and the 
sordid nature of the king, — were unfavorable to settlements which 
promised no immediate advantage ; and it was not until the reign 
of Elizabeth that any deliberate plans were made for the coloniza- 
tion of North America. The voyages of Frobisher and Drake 
had aroused a spirit of adventure, if they had not gratified the 
thirst for gold. 

Among those who felt an intense interest in the new world, was 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a man of enlarged views and intrepid 
boldness. He secured from Elizabeth (1578) a liberal patent, 
and sailed, with a considerable body of adventurers, for the new 
world. But he took a too northerly direction, and his largest ves- 
sel was shipwrecked on the coast of Cape Breton. The enterprise, 



CHAP. XX.] SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 315 

from various causes, completely failed, and the intrepid navigator 
lost his life. 

The spirit of the times raised up, however, a greater genius, and 
a more accomplished adventurer, and no less a personage than 
Sir Walter Raleigh, — the favorite of the queen ; the greatest 
scholar and the most elegant courtier of the age ; a soldier, a phi- 
losopher, and a statesman. He obtained a patent, substantially the 
same as that which had been bestowed on Gilbert. In 1584, Ra- 
leigh despatched two small exploring vessels, under the command 
of Amadar and Barlow, which seasonably arrived off the coast of 
North Carolina. From the favorable report of the country and 
the people, a larger fleet, of seven ships, was despatched to Amer- 
ica, commanded by Sir Richard Grenville. But he was diverted 
from his course by the prevailing passion for predatory enterprise, 
and hence only landed one hundred and eight men at Roanoke, 
(1585.) The government of this feeble band was intrusted to 
Captain Lane. But the passion for gold led to a misunderstanding 
with the natives. The colony became enfeebled and reduced, and 
the adventurers returned to England, (1586,) bringing with them 
some knowledge of the country, and also that singular weed, which 
rapidly enslaved the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, and which soon 
became one of the great staple commodities in the trade of the 
civilized world. Modern science has proved it to be a poison, and 
modern philanthropy has lifted up its warning voice against the use 
of it. But when have men, in their degeneracy, been governed 
by their reason ? What logic can break the power of habit, or 
counteract the seductive influences of those excitements which fill 
the mind with visionary hopes, and lull a tumultuous spirit into the 
repose of pleasant dreams and oblivious joys ? Sir Walter Raleigh, 
to his shame or his misfortune, was among the first to patronize a 
custom which has proved more injurious to civilized nations than 
even the use of opium itself, because it is more universal and 
more insidious. 

But smoking was simply an amusement with him. He soon 
turned his thoughts to the reestablishment of his colony. Even 
before the return of the company under Lane, Sir Richard Gren- 
ville had visited the Roanoke, with the necessary stores. But he 
arrived too late ; the colony was abandoned. 



316 LONDON COMPANY INCOEPOEATED. [CHAP. XX. 



4 



But nothing could abate the zeal of the most enterprising genius 
of the age. In 1587, he despatched three more ships, under the 
command of Captain White, who founded the city of Raleigh. 
But no better success attended the new band of colonists. White 
sailed for England, to secure new supplies ; and, when he returned, 
he found no traces of the colony he had planted ; and no subse- 
quent ingenuity or labor has been able to discover the slightest 
vestige. 

The patience of Raleigh was not wasted ; but new objects occu- 
pied his mind, and he parted with his patent, which made him the 
proprietary of a great part of the Southern States. Nor were 
there any new attempts at colonization until 1606, in the reign of 
James. 

Through the influence of Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a man of great 
wealth ; Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of England ; Richard 
Hakluyt, the historian ; Bartholomew Gosnold, the navigator, and 
John Smith, the enthusiastic adventurer, — King James I. granted 
a royal charter to two rival companies, for the colonization of 
America. The first was composed of noblemen, gentlemen, and 
merchants, in and about London, who had an exclusive right to 
occupy regions from thirty-four to thirty-eight degrees of north 
latitude. The other company, composed of gentlemen and mer- 
chants in the west of England, had assigned to them the territory 
between forty-one and forty-five degrees. But only the first com- 
pany succeeded. 

The territory, appropriated to the London or southern colony, 
preserved the name which had been bestowed upon it during the 
reign of Elizabeth, — Virginia. The colonists were authorized to 
transport, free of the custom-house, for the term of seven years, 
what arms and provisions they required ; and their children were 
permitted to enjoy the same privileges and liberties, in the Amer- 
ican settlements, that Englishmen had at home. They had the 
right to search for mines, to coin money, and, for twenty-one 
years, to impose duties, on vessels trading to their harbors, for the 
benefit of the colony. But, after this period, the duty was to be 
taken for the king, who also preserved a control over both the 
councils established for the government of the colony, — the one 
in England itself, and the other in Virginia ; a control inconsistent 



CHAP. XX.] HARDSHIPS OF THE VIRGINIA COLONY. 317 

with those liberties which the colonists subsequently asserted and 
secured. 

The London Company promptly applied themselves to the settle- 
ment of their territories ; and, on the 19th of December, 1606, a 
squadron of three small vessels set sail for the new world; and, 
on May 13, 1607, a company of one hundred and five men, 
without families, disembarked at Jamestown. This was the first 
permanent settlement in America by the English. But great 
misfortunes afflicted them. Before September, one half of the 
colonists had perished, and the other half were suffering from fam- 
ine, dissension, and fear. The president, Wingfield, attempted to 
embezzle the public stores, and escape to the West Indies. He 
was supplanted in his command by Ratcliffe, a man without ca- 
pacity. But a deliverer was raised up in the person of Captain 
John Smith, who extricated the suffering and discontented band 
from the evils which impended. He had been a traveller and a 
warrior ; had visited France, Italy, and Egypt ; fought in Holland 
and Hungary ; was taken a prisoner of war in Wallachia, and sent 
as a slave to Constantinople. Removed to a fortress in the Crimea, 
and subjected to the hardest tasks, he yet contrived to escape, and, 
after many perils, reached his native country. But greater hard- 
ships and dangers awaited him in the new world, to which he was 
impelled by his adventurous curiosity. He was surprised and taken 
by a party of hostile Indians, when on a tour of exploration, and 
would have been murdered, had it not been for his remarkable 
presence of mind and singular sagacity, united with the inter- 
cession of the famous Pocahontas, daughter of a great Indian 
chief, from whom some of the best families in Virginia are de- 
scended. It would be pleasant to detail the romantic incidents of 
this brief captivity ; but our limits forbid. Smith, when he returned 
to Jamestown, found his company reduced to forty men ; and they 
were discouraged and disheartened. Moreover, they were a differ- 
ent class of men from those who colonized New England. They 
were gentlemen adventurers connected with aristocratic families, 
were greedy for gold, and had; neither the fortitude nor the habits 
requisite for success. They were not accustomed to labor, at 
least with the axe and plough. Smith earnestly wrote to the 
council of the company in England, to send carpenters, husband- 
27* 



318 NEW CHARTER OF THE LONDON COMPANY. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

men, gardeners, fishermen, and blacksmiths, instead of " vagabond 
gentlemen and goldsmiths." But he had to organize a colony 
with such materials as avarice or adventurous curiosity had sent to 
America. And, in spite of dissensions and natural indolence, he 
succeeded in placing it on a firm foundation ; surveyed the Chesa- 
peake Bay to the Susquehannah, and explored the inlets of the 
majestic Potomac. But he was not permitted to complete the 
work which he had so beneficently begun. His administration 
was unacceptable to the company in England, who cared very 
little for the welfare of the infant colony, and only sought a profit- 
able investment of their capital. They were disappointed that 
mines of gold and silver had not been discovered, and that they 
themselves had not become enriched. Even the substantial wel- 
fare of the colony displeased them ; for this diverted attention from 
the pursuit of mineral wealth. 

The original patentees, therefore, sought to strengthen them- 
selves by new associates and a new charter. And a new charter 
was accordingly granted to twenty-one peers, ninety-eight knights, 
and a great number of doctors, esquires, gentlemen, and mer- 
chants. The bounds of the colony were enlarged, the council 
and offices in Virginia abolished, and the company in Eng- 
land empowered to nominate all officers in the colony. Lord 
Delaware was appointed governor and captain-general of the 
company, and a squadron of nine ships, with five hundred emi- 
grants were sent to Virginia. But these emigrants consisted, for the 
most part, of profligate young men, whom their aristocratic friends 
sent away to screen themselves from shame ; broken down gentle- 
men, too lazy to work ; and infamous dependants on powerful 
families. They threw the whole colony into confusion, and pro- 
voked, by their aggression and folly, the animosities of the 
Indians, whom Smith had appeased. The settlement at James- 
town was abandoned to famine and confusion, and would have 
been deserted had it not been for the timely arrival of Lord Dela- 
ware, with ample supplies and new recruits. His administration 
was wise and efficient, and he succeeded in restoring order, if he 
did not secure the wealth which was anticipated. 

In 1612, the company obtained a third patent, by which all the 
islands within three hundred leagues of the Virginia shore were 



CHAP. XX.] RAPID COLONIZATION. 319 

granted to the patentees, and by which a portion of the power 
heretofore vested in the council was transferred to the whole com- 
pany. The political rights of the colonists remained the same, 
but they acquired gradually peace and tranquillity. Tobacco was 
extensively cultivated, and proved a more fruitful source of wealth 
than mines of silver or gold. 

The jealousy of arbitrary power, and impatience of liberty, 
among the new settlers, induced the Governor of Virginia, in 1619, 
to reinstate them in the full possession of the rights of Englishmen ; 
and he accordingly convoked a Provincial Assembly, the first ever 
held in America, which consisted of the governor, the council, and 
a number of burgesses, elected by the eleven existing boroughs 
of the colony. The deliberation and laws of this infant legisla- 
ture were transmitted to England for approval ; and so wise and 
judicious were these, that the company, soon after, approved and 
ratified the platform of what gradually ripened into the American 
representative system. 

The guarantee of political rights led to a rapid colonization. 
" Men were now willing to regard Virginia as their home. They 
fell to building houses and planting corn." Women were induced 
to leave the parent country to become the wives of adventurous 
planters ; and, during the space of three years, thirty-five hundred 
persons, of both sexes, found their way to Virginia. In the year 
1620, a Dutch ship, from the coast of Guinea, arrived in James 
River, and landed twenty negroes for sale ; and, as they were 
found more capable of enduring fatigue, in a southern climate, than 
the Europeans, they were continually imported, until a large pro- 
portion of the inhabitants of Virginia was composed of slaves. 
Thus was introduced, at this early period, that lasting system of 
injustice and cruelty which has proved already an immeasurable 
misfortune to the country, as well as a disgrace to the institutions 
of republican liberty, but which is lamented, in many instances, by 
no class with more sincerity than by those who live by the produce 
of slave labor itself. 

The succeeding year, which witnessed the importation of ne- 
groes, beheld the cultivation of cotton, that great staple of southern 
produce. 

In 1622, the long-suppressed enmity of the Indians broke out in 



320 INDIAN WARFARE. [CHAP. XX. 



4 



a savage attempt to murder the whole colony. A plot had been 
formed by which all the English settlements were to be attacked 
on the same day, and at the same hour. The conspiracy was 
betrayed by a friendly Indian, but not in time to prevent a fearful 
massacre of three hundred and forty-seven persons, among whom 
were some of the wealthiest and most respectable inhabitants. 
Then followed all the evils of an Indian war, and the settlements 
were reduced from eighty to eight plantations ; and it was not 
until after a protracted struggle that the colonists regained their 
prosperity. 

Scarcely had hostilities with the Indians commenced, before 
dissensions among the company in England led to a quarrel with 
the king, and a final abrogation of their charter. The company 
was too large and too democratic. The members were dissatisfied 
that so little gain had been derived from the colony ; and moreover 
they made their courts or convocations, when they assembled to 
discuss colonial matters, the scene of angry political debate. 
There was a court party and a country party, each inflamed 
with violent political animosities. The country party was the 
stronger, and soon excited the jealousy of the arbitrary monarch, 
who looked upon their meetings " as but a seminary to a seditious 
parliament." A royal board of commissioners were appointed to 
examine the affairs of the company, who reported unfavorably ; 
and the king therefore ordered the company to surrender its 
charter. The company refused to obey an arbitrary mandate ; 
but upon its refusal, the king ordered a writ of quo warranto to 
be issued, and the Court of the King's Bench decided, of course, 
in favor of the crown. The company was accordingly dissolved. 
But the dissolution, though arbitrary, operated beneficially on the 
colony. Of all cramping institutions, a sovereign company of 
merchants is the most so, since they seek simply commercial gain, 
without any reference to the political, moral, or social improve- 
ment of the people whom they seek to control. 

Before King James had completed his scheme for the govern- 
ment of the colony, he died ; and Charles I. pursued the same 
arbitrary policy which his father contemplated. He instituted a 
government which combined the unlimited prerogative of an abso- 
lute prince with the narrow and selfish maxims of a mercantile 



CHAP. XX.] GOVERNOR HARVEY. 321 

corporation. He monopolized the profits of its trade, and em- 
powered the new governor, whom he appointed, to exercise his 
authority with the most undisguised usurpation of those rights 
which the colonists had heretofore enjoyed. Harvey's disposition 
was congenial with the rapacious and cruel system which he pur- 
sued, and he acted more like the satrap of an Eastern prince 
than the representative of a' constitutional monarch. The colonists 
remonstrated and complained ; but their appeals to the mercy and 
justice of the king were disregarded, and Harvey continued his 
course of insolence and tyranny until that famous parliament was 
assembled which rebelled against the folly and government of 
Charles. In 1641, a new and upright governor, Sir William 
Berkeley, was sent to Virginia, and the old provincial liberties 
were restored. In the contest between the king and parliament, 
Virginia espoused the royal cause. When the parliament had 
triumphed over the king, Virginia was made to feel the force of 
republican displeasure, and oppressive restrictions were placed 
upon the trade of the colony, which were the more provoking in 
view of the indulgence which the New England colonies received 
from the protector. A revolt ensued, and Sir William Berkeley 
was forced from his retirement, and made to assume the govern- 
ment of the rebellious province. Cromwell, fortunately for Vir- 
ginia, but unfortunately for the world, died before the rebellion 
could be suppressed ; and when Charles II. was restored, Virginia 
joyfully returned to her allegiance. The supremacy of the Church 
of England was established by law, stipends were allowed to her 
ministers, and no clergymen were permitted to exercise their 
functions but such as held to the supremacy of the Church of 
England. 

But Charles II. was as incapable as his father of pursuing 
a generous and just policy to the colonies ; and parliament itself 
looked upon the colonies as a source of profit to the nation, rather 
than as a part of the nation. No. sooner was Charles seated on 
the throne, than parliament imposed a duty of five per cent, on all 
merchandise exported from, or imported into, any of the domin- 
ions belonging to the crown ; and the famous Navigation Act was 
passed, which ordained that no commodities should be imported 
into any of the British settlements but in vessels built in England 



322 ARBITRARY POLICY OF CHARLES II. [CHAP. XX, 

4 

or in her colonies ; and that no sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, 
and some other articles produced in the colonies, should be shipped 
from them to any other country but England. As a compensa- 
tion, the colonies were permitted the exclusive cultivation of 
tobacco. The parliament, soon after, in 1663, passed additional 
restrictions ; and, advancing, step by step, gradually subjected the 
colonies to a most oppressive dependence on the mother country, 
and even went so far as to regulate the trade of the several 
colonies with each other. This system of monopoly and exclusion, 
of course, produced indignation and disgust, and sowed the seeds 
of ultimate rebellion. Indian hostilities were added to provincial 
discontent, and even the horrors of civil war disturbed the prosperity 
of the colony. An ambitious and unprincipled adventurer, by the 
name of Bacon, succeeded in fomenting dissension, and in success- 
fully resisting the power of the governor. Providence arrested the 
career of the rebel in the moment of his triumph ; and his sickness 
and death fortunately dissipated the tempest which threatened to 
be fatal to the peace and welfare of Virginia. Berkeley, on the 
suppression of the rebellion, punished the offenders with a severity 
which ill accorded with his lenient and pacific character. His 
course did not please the government in England, and he was 
superseded by Colonel Jeffries. But he died before his successor 
arrived. A succession of governors administered the colony as 
their disposition prompted, some of whom wore wise and able, and 
others tyrannical and rapacious. 

The English revolution of 1688 produced also a change in the 
administration of the colony. Its dependence on the personal 
character of the sovereign was abolished, and its chartered liberties 
were protected. The king continued to appoint the royal gov- 
ernor, and the parliament continued to oppress the trade of the 
colonists ; but they, on the whole, enjoyed the rights of freemen, 
and rapidly advanced in wealth and prosperity. On the accession 
of William and Mary, the colony contained fifty thousand inhab- 
itants and forty-eight parishes ; and, in 1676, the customs on 
tobacco alone were collected in England to the amount of one 
hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. The people generally 
belonged to the Episcopal Church, and the clergy each received, 
in every parish, a house and glebe, together with sixteen thousand 



CHAP. XX.] SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND. 323 

pounds of tobacco. The people were characterized for hospitality 
and urbanity, but were reproached for the indolence which a 
residence in scattered villages, a hot climate, and negro slavery 
must almost inevitably lead to. Literature, that solace of the 
refined and luxurious in the European world, was but imperfectly 
cultivated ; nor was religion, in its stern and lofty developments, 
the animating principle of life, as in the New England settlements. 
But the people of Virginia were richer, more cultivated, and more 
aristocratic than the Puritans, more refined in manners, and more 
pleasing as companions. 

The settlements in New England were made by a very different 
class of men from those who colonized Virginia. They were not 
adventurers in quest of gain ; they were not broken-down gentle- 
men of aristocratic connections ; they were not the profligate and 
dissolute members of powerful families. They were Puritans ; 
they belonged to the middle ranks of society ; they were men of 
stern and lofty virtue, of invincible energy, and hard and iron 
wills ; they detested both the civil and religious despotism of their 
times, and desired, above all worldly consideration, the liberty of 
worshipping God according to the dictates of their consciences. 
They were chiefly Independents and Calvinists, among whom 
religion was a life, and not a dogma. They sought savage wilds, 
not for gain, not for ease, not for aggrandizement, but for liberty 
of conscience ; and, for the sake of that inestimable privilege, 
they were ready to forego all the comforts and elegances of civil- 
ized life, and cheerfully meet all the dangers and make all the sac- 
rifices which a residence among savage Indians, and in a cold and 
inhospitable climate, necessarily incurred. 

The efforts at colonization attempted by the company in the 
west of England, to which allusion has been made, signally failed. 
God did not design that New England should be settled by a band 
of commercial adventurers. A colony was permanently planted 
at Plymouth, within the limits of the corporation, of forty per- 
sons', to whom James had granted enormous powers, and a belt 
of country from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north 
latitude in width, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific in length. 
f - On the 5th of August, 1620, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, 
freighted with the first Puritan colony, set sail from Southampton. 



324 ARRIVAL OF THE MAYFLOWER. [CHAP. XX. 



4 



It composed a band of religious and devoted men, with their wives 
and children, who had previously sought shelter in Holland for the 
enjoyment of their religious opinions. The smaller vessel, after 
a trial on the Atlantic, was found incompetent to the voyage, and 
was abandoned. The more timid were allowed to disembark at 
old Plymouth. One hundred and one resolute souls again set sail 
in the Mayflower, for the unknown wilderness, with all its count- 
less dangers and miseries. No common worldly interest could 
have sustained their souls. The first adventurers embarked for 
Virginia, without women or children ; but the Puritans made 
preparation for a permanent residence. Providence, against their 
design, guided their little vessel to the desolate shores of the most 
barren part of Massachusetts. On the 9th of November, it was 
safely moored in the harbor of Cape Cod. On the 11th, the colo- 
nists solemnly bound themselves into a body politic, and chose John 
Carver for their governor. On the 1 lth of December, (0. S.,) after 
protracted perils and sufferings, this little company landed on Plym- 
outh Rock. • Before the opening spring, more than half the colony 
had perished from privation, fatigue, and suffering, among whom 
was the governor himself. In the autumn, their numbers were 
recruited ; but all the miseries of famine remained. They lived 
together as a community ; but, for three or four months together, 
they had no corn whatever. In the spring of 1623, each family 
planted for itself, and land was assigned to each person in perpetual 
fee. The needy and defenceless colonists were fortunately pre- 
served from the hostility of the natives, since a famine had swept 
away the more dangerous of their savage neighbors ; nor did hos- 
tilities commence for several years. God protected the Pilgrims, in 
their weakness, from the murderous tomahawk, and from the perils 
of the wilderness. They suffered, but they existed. Their numbers 
slowly increased, but they were all Puritans, — were just the men 
to colonize the land, and lay the foundation of a great empire. 
From the beginning, a strict democracy existed, and all enjoyed 
ample exemption from the trammels of arbitrary power. No 
king took cognizance of their existence, or imposed upon them a 
despotic governor. They appointed their own rulers, and those 
rulers governed in the fear of God. Township independence 
existed from the first ; and this is the nursery and the genius of 



CHAP. XX.] SETTLEMENT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 325 

American institutions. The Plymouth colony was a self-constituted 
democracy ; but it was composed of Englishmen, who loved their 
native land, and, while they sought unrestrained freedom, did not 
disdain dependence on the mother country, and a proper connection 
with the English government. They could not obtain a royal 
charter from the king; but the Grand Council of Plymouth — 
a new company, to which James had given the privileges of the 
old one — granted all the privileges which the colonists desired. 
They were too insignificant to attract much attention from the 
government, or excite the jealousy of a great corporation. 

Unobtrusive and unfettered, the colony slowly spread. But 
wherever it spread, it took root. It was a tree which Providence 
planted for all generations. It was established upon a rock. It 
was a branch of the true church, which was destined to defy 
storms and changes, because its strength was in the Lord. 

But all parts of New England were not, at first, settled by Puri- 
tan Pilgrims, or from motives of religion merely. The council of 
Plymouth issued grants of domains to various adventurers, who 
were animated by the spirit of gain. John Mason received a 
patent for what is now the state of New Hampshire. Portsmouth 
and Dover had an existence as early as 1623. Gorges obtained a 
grant of the whole district between the Piscataqua and the Kenne- 
bec. Saco, in 1636, contained one hundred and fifty people. But 
the settlements in New Hampshire and Maine, having disappointed 
the expectations of the patentees in regard to emolument and profit, 
were not very flourishing. 

In the mean time, a new company of Puritans was formed for 
the settlement of the country around Boston. The company ob- 
tained a royal charter, (1629,) which constituted them a body pol- 
itic, by the name of the Governor and Company of the Massachu- 
setts Bay. It conferred on the colonists the rights of English 
subjects, although it did not technically concede freedom of reli- 
gious worship, or the privilege of self-government. The main body 
of the colonists settled in Salem. They were a band of devout 
and lofty characters ; Calvinists in their religious creed, and repub- 
licans in their political opinions. Strict independency was the 
basis and the genius of their church. It was self-constituted, and 
all its officers were elected by the members. 
28 



326 CONSTITUTION OF THE COLONY. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

The charter of the company had been granted to a corporation 
consisting chiefly of merchants resident in London, and was more 
liberal than could have been expected from so bigoted and zealous 
a king as Charles I. If it did not directly concede the rights of 
conscience, it seemed to be silent respecting them ; and the colonists 
were left to the unrestricted enjoyment of their religious and civil 
liberties. The intolerance and rigor of Archbishop Laud caused 
this new colony to be rapidly settled ; and, as many distinguished 
men desired to emigrate, they sought and secured, from the com- 
} pany in England, a transfer of all the powers of government to 
the actual settlers in America. By this singular transaction, the 
municipal rights and privileges of the colonists were established on 
a firm foundation. 

In 1630, not far from fifteen hundred persons, with Winthrop as 
their leader and governor, emigrated to the new world, and settled 
first in Charlestown, and afterwards in Boston. In accordance 
with the charter which gave them such unexpected privileges, 
a General Court was assembled, to settle the government. But 
the privilege of the elective franchise was given only to the mem- 
bers of the church, and each church was formed after the model of 
the one in Salem. It cannot be said that a strict democracy was 
established, since church membership was the condition of the full 
enjoyment of political rights. But if the constitution was some- 
what aristocratic and exclusive, aristocracy was not based on wealth 
or intellect. The Calvinists of Massachusetts recognized a gov- 
ernment of the elect, — a sort of theocracy, in which only the 
religious, or those who professed to be so, and were admitted to be 
so, had a right to rule. This was the notion of Cromwell himself, 
the great idol and representative of the Independents, who fancied 
that the government of England should be intrusted only to those who 
were capable of saving England, and were worthy to rule England. 
As his party constituted, in his eyes, this elect body, and was, in 
reality, the best party, — composed of men who feared God, and 
were willing to be ruled by his laws, — therefore his party, as he 
supposed, had a right to overturn thrones, and establish a new 
theocracy on earth. 

This notion was a delusion in England, and proved fatal to all 
those who were blinded by it. Not so in America. Amid the 



CHAP. XX.] DOCTRINES OF THE PUEITANS. 327 

unbroken forests of New England, a colony of men was planted 
who generally recognized the principles of Cromwell ; and one of 
the best governments the world has seen controlled the turbulent, 
rewarded the upright, and protected the rights and property of all 
classes with almost paternal fidelity and justice. The colony, how- 
ever, — ■ such is the weakness of man, such the degeneracy of his 
nature, — was doomed to dissension. Bigotry, from which no 
communities or individuals are fully free, drove some of the best 
men from the limits of the colony. Roger Williams, a minister in 
Salem, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his 
age, sought shelter from the persecution of his brethren amid the 
wilds on Narragansett Bay. In June, 1636, the lawgiver of Rhode 
Island, with five companions, embarked in an Indian canoe, and, 
sailing down the river, landed near a spring, on a sheltered spot, 
which he called Providence. He was gradually joined by others, 
who sympathized with his tolerant spirit and enlightened views, and 
the colony of Rhode Island became an asylum for the persecuted 
for many years. And there were many such. The Puritans were 
too earnest to live in harmony with those who differed from them 
on great religious questions ; and a difference of views must have 
been expected among men so intellectual, so acute, and so fearless 
in speculation. How could dissenters from prevailing opinions 
fail to arise ? — mystics, fanatics, and heretics ? The idea of 
special divine illumination — ever the prevailing source of fanati- 
cism, in all ages and countries — led astray some ; and the desire 
for greater spiritual liberty animated others. Anne Hutchinson 
adopted substantially the doctrine of George Fox, that the spirit of 
God illuminates believers, independently of his written word ; and 
she communicated her views to many others, who became, like 
her, arrogant and conceited, in spite of their many excellent qual- 
ities. Harry Vane, the governor, was among the number. But 
there was no reasoning with fanatics, who fancied themselves 
especially inspired ; and, as they disturbed the peace of the col- 
ony, the leaders were expelled. Vane himself returned to England, 
to mingle in scenes more congenial with his excellent but excitable 
temper. In England, this illustrious friend of Milton greatly dis- 
tinguished himself for his efforts in the cause of liberty, and ever 
remained its consistent advocate ; opposing equally the tyranny of 



328 PEQUOD WAR. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

the king, and the encroachments of those who overturned his 
throne. 

Connecticut, though assigned to a company in England, was 
early colonized by a detachment of Pilgrims from Massachusetts. 
In 1635, settlements were made at Hartford, Windsor, and Weth- 
ersfield. The following year, the excellent and illustrious Hooker 
led a company of one hundred persons through the forests to the 
delightful banks of the Connecticut, whose rich alluvial soil prom- 
ised an easier support than the hard and stony land in the vicinity 
of Boston. They were scarcely settled before the Pequod war 
commenced, which involved all the colonies in a desperate and 
bloody contest with the Indians. But the Pequods were no match 
for Europeans, especially without firearms ; and, in 1637, the 
tribe was nearly annihilated. The energy and severity exercised 
by the colonists, fighting for their homes, struck awe in the minds 
of the savages ; and it was long before they had the courage to 
rally a second time. The Puritans had the spirit of Cromwell, 
and never hesitated to act with intrepid boldness and courage, 
when the necessity was laid upon them. They were no advocates 
of half measures. Their subsequent security and growth are, in 
no slight degree, to be traced to these rigorous measures, — meas- 
ures which, in these times, are sometimes denounced as too severe, 
but the wisdom of which can scarcely be questioned when the 
results are considered. All the great masters of war, and of war 
with barbarians, have pursued a policy of unmitigated severity ; 
and when a temporizing or timid course has been adopted with 
men incapable of being governed by reason, and animated by sav- 
age passions, that course has failed. 

After the various colonies were well established in New Eng- 
land, and more than twenty thousand had emigrated from the 
mother country, they were no longer regarded with benevolent 
interest by the king or his ministers. The Grand Council of 
Plymouth surrendered its charter to the king, and a writ of quo 
warranto was issued against the Massachusetts colony. But the 
Puritans refused to surrender their charter, and prepared for resist- 
ance against the malignant scheme of Strafford and Laud. Before 
they could be carried into execution, the struggle between the king 
and the Long Parliament had commenced. The less resistance 



CHAP. XX.] UNION OF THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES. 329 

was forgotten in the greater. The colonies escaped the vengeance 
of a bigoted government. When the parliament triumphed, they 
were especially favored, and gradually acquired wealth and power. 
The different colonies formed a confederation to protect themselves 
against the Dutch and French on the one side, and the Indians on 
the other. And this happily continued for half a century, and 
was productive of very important results. But the several colonies 
continued to make laws for their own people, to repress anarchy, 
and favor the cause of religion and unity. They did not always 
exhibit a liberal and enlightened policy. They destroyed \witches ; 
persecuted the Baptists and Quakers, and excluded them from 
their settlements. But, with the exception of religious persecu- 
tion, their legislation was wise, and their general conduct was vir- 
tuous. They encouraged schools, and founded the University of 
Cambridge. They preserved the various peculiarities of Puritan- 
ism in regard to amusements, to the observance of the Sabbath, 
and to antipathy to any thing which reminded them of Rome, or 
even of the Church of England. But Puritanism was not an 
odious crust, a form, a dogma. It was a life, a reality ; and 
was not unfavorable to the development of the most beautiful 
virtues of charity and benevolence, in a certain sphere. It was 
not a mere traditional Puritanism, which clings with disgusting 
tenacity to a form, when the spirit of love has departed ; but it 
was a harmonious development of living virtues, which sympa- 
thized with education, with freedom, and with progress; which 
united men together by the bond of Christian love, and incited 
them to deeds of active benevolence and intrepid moral heroism. 
Nor did the Puritan Pilgrims persecute those who did not harmo- 
nize with them in order to punish them, but simply to protect them- 
selves, and to preserve in their midst, and in their original purity, 
those institutions and those rights, for the possession of which they 
left their beloved native land for a savage wilderness, with its 
countless perils and miseries. But their hardships and afflictions 
were not of long continuance. With energy, industry, frugality, 
and love, they soon obtained security, comfort, and health. And 
it is no vain and idle imagination which assigns to those years, 
which succeeded the successful planting of the colony, the period 
28* 



330 WILLIAM PENN. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

of the greatest happiness and virtue which New England has ever 
enjoyed. 

Equally fortunate with the Puritans were those interesting 
people who settled Pennsylvania. If the Quakers were persecuted 
in the mother country and in New England, they found a shelter 
on the banks of the Delaware. There they obtained and enjoyed 
that freedom of religious worship which had been denied to the 
great founder of the sect, and which had even been withheld 
from them by men who had struggled with tiVm for the attain- 
ment of this exalted privilege. 

In 1677, the Quakers obtained a charter which recognized the 
principle of democratic equality in the settlements in West Jer- 
sey ; and in 1680, William Penn received from the king, who 
was indebted to his father, a grant of an extensive territory, 
which was called Pennsylvania, of which he was constituted abso- 
lute proprietary. He also received a liberal charter, and gave his 
people privileges and a code of laws which exceeded in liberality 
any that had as yet been bestowed on any community. In 1682, 
he landed at Newcastle, and, soon after, at his new city on the 
banks of the Delaware, under the shelter of a large, spreading 
elm, made his immortal treaty with the Indians. He proclaimed 
to the Indian, heretofore deemed a foe never to be appeased, 
the principles of love which animated Fox, and which " Mary 
Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk." " We meet," said the 
lawgiver, "on the broad pathway of good faith and good will. No 
advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness 
and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes 
chide their children too severely ; nor brothers only, for brothers 
differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to 
a chain, for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might 
break. We are the same as if one man's body were to be divided 
into two parts ; we are all one flesh and blood." 

Such were the sublime doctrines which the illustrious founder 
of Pennsylvania declared to the Indians, and which he made the 
basis of his government, and the rule of his intercourse with his 
own people and with savage tribes. These doctrines were already 
instilled into the minds of the settlers, and they also found a response 
in the souls of the Indians. The sons of the wilderness lona; 



CHAP. XX.] SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK. 331 

cherished the recollection of the covenant, and never forgot its 
principles. While all the other settlements of the Europeans were 
suffering from the hostility of the red man, Pennsylvania alone 
enjoyed repose. " Not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by 
an Indian." 

William Penn, although the absolute proprietor of a tract of 
country which was nearly equal in extent to England, sought no 
revenue and no arbitrary power. He gave to the settlers the right 
to choose their own magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, 
and only reserved to himself the power to veto the bills of the 
council — the privilege which our democracies still allow to their 
governors. 

Such a colony as he instituted could not but prosper. Its rising 
glories were proclaimed in every country of Europe, and the 
needy and distressed of all countries sought this realized Utopia. 
In two years after Philadelphia was settled, it contained six hun- 
dred houses. Peace was uninterrupted, and the settlement spread 
more rapidly than in any other part of North America. 

New Jersey, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, 
were all colonized by the English, shortly after the settlement of 
Virginia and New England, either by emigration from England, or 
from the other colonies. But there was nothing in their early history 
sufficiently marked to warrant a more extended sketch. In general, 
the Southern States were colonized by men who had not the religious 
elevation of the Puritans, nor the living charity of the Quakers. 
But their characters improved by encountering the evils to which 
they were subjected, and they became gradually imbued with those 
principles which in after times secured independence and union. 

The settlement of New York, however, merits a passing notice, 
since it was colonized by emigrants from Holland, which was by 
far the most flourishing commercial state of Europe in the seven- 
teenth century. The Hudson River had been discovered (1609) 
by an Englishman, whose name it bears, but who was in the ser- 
vice of the Dutch East India Company. The right of possession 
of the country around it was therefore claimed by the United 
Provinces, and an association of Dutch merchants fitted out a ship 
to trade with the Indians. In 1614, a rude fort was erected on 
Manhattan Island, and, the next year, the settlement at Albany 



332 CONQUEST OF NEW NETHERLANDS. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

commenced, chiefly with a view of trading with the Indians. In 
1623, New Amsterdam, now New York, was built for the purpose 
of colonization, and extensive territories were appropriated by the 
Dutch for the rising colony. This appropriation involved them in 
constant contention with the English, as well as with the Indians ; 
nor was there the enjoyment of political privileges by the people, 
as in the New England colonies. The settlements resembled 
lordships in the Netherlands, and every one who planted a colony 
of fifty souls, possessed the absolute property of the lands he 
colonized, and became Patroon, or Lord of the Manor. Very little 
attention was given to education, and the colonists were not per- 
mitted to make cotton, woollen, or linen cloth, for fear of injury to 
the monopolists of the Dutch manufactures. The province had no 
popular freedom, and no public spirit. The poor were numerous, 
and the people were disinclined to make proper provision for their 
own protection. 

But the colony of the New Netherlands was not destined to 
remain under the government of the Dutch West India Company. 
It was conquered by the English in 1664, and the conquerors 
promised security to the customs, the religion, the institutions, and 
the possessions of the Dutch ; and this promise was observed. In 
1673, the colony was reconquered, but finally, in 1674, was ceded 
to the English, and the brother of Charles II. resumed his pos- 
session and government of New York, and delegated his power 
to Colonel Nichols, who ruled with wisdom and humanity. But the 
old Dutch Governor Stuyvesant remained in the city over which 
he had so honorably presided, and prolonged the empire of Dutch 
manners, if not of Dutch arms. The banks of the Hudson con- 
tinued also to be peopled by the countrymen of the original colo- 
nists, who long preserved the language, customs, and religion of 
Holland. New York, nevertheless, was a royal province, and the 
administration was frequently intrusted to rapacious, unprincipled, 
and arbitrary governors. 

Thus were the various states which border on the Atlantic Ocean 
colonized, in which English laws, institutions, and language were 
destined to be perpetuated. In 1688, the various colonies, of which 
there were twelve, contained about two hundred thousand inhabit- 
ants ; and all of these were Protestants ; all cherished the principles 



CHAP. XX.] DISCOVERY OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. 333 

of civil and religious liberty, and sought, by industry, frugality, 
and patience, to secure independence and prosperity. From that 
period to this, no nation has grown more rapidly ; no one has ever 
developed more surprising energies ; no one has ever enjoyed 
greater social, political, and religious privileges. 

But the shores of North America were not colonized merely by 
the English. On the banks of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi, 
another body of colonists arrived, and introduced customs and 
institutions equally foreign to those of the English and Spaniards. 
The French settlements in Canada and Louisiana are now to be 
considered. 

Within seven years from the discovery of the continent, the 
fisheries of Newfoundland were known to French adventurers. 
The St. Lawrence was explored in 1506, and plans of colonization 
were formed in 1518. In 1534, James Carrier, a native of St. 
Malo, sailed up the River St. Lawrence ; but the severity of the 
climate in winter prevented an immediate settlement. It was not 
until 1603 that any permanent colonization was commenced. 
Quebec was then selected by Samuel Champlain, the father of the 
French settlements in Canada, as the site for a fort. In 1604, a 
charter was given, by Henry IV., to an eminent Calvinist, De 
Monts, which gave him the sovereignty of Acadia, a tract em- 
braced between the fortieth and forty-sixth degrees of north latitude. 
The Huguenot emigrants were to enjoy their religion, the monopoly 
of the fur trade, and the exclusive control of the soil. They 
arrived at Nova Scotia the same year, and settled in Port Royal. 

In 1608, Quebec was settled by Champlain, who aimed at the 
glory of founding a state ; and in 1627 he succeeded in establish- 
ing the authority of the French on the banks of the St. Lawrence. 
But Champlain was also a zealous Catholic, and esteemed the 
salvation of a soul more than the conquest of a kingdom. He 
therefore selected Franciscan monks to effect the conversion of 
the Indians. But they were soon supplanted by the Jesuits, who, 
patronized by the government in France, soon made the new 
world the scene of their strange activity. 

At no period and in no country were Jesuit missionaries more 
untiring laborers than amid the forests of North America. With 
the crucifix in their hands, they wandered about with savage tribes, 



334 JESUIT MISSIONARIES. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

and by unparalleled labors of charity and benevolence, sought to 
convert them to the Christianity of Rome. As early as 1635, a 
college and a hospital were founded, by munificent patrons in 
France, for the benefit of all the tribes of red men from the 
waters of Lake Superior to the shores of the Kennebec. In 1641, 
Montreal, intended as a general rendezvous for converted Indians, 
was occupied, and soon became the most important station in 
Canada, next to the fortress of Quebec. Before Eliot had preached 
to the Indians around Boston, the intrepid missionaries of the Jesuits 
had explored the shores of Lake Superior, had penetrated to the 
Falls of St. Mary's, and had visited the Chippeways, the Hurons, 
the Iroquois, and the Mohawks. Soon after, they approached the 
Dutch settlements on the Hudson, explored the sources of the 
Mississippi, examined its various tributary streams, and floated 
down its mighty waters to its mouth. The missionaries claimed 
the territories on the Gulf of Mexico for the king of France, and 
in 1684, Louisiana was colonized by Frenchmen. The indefati- 
gable La Salle, after having explored the Mississippi, from the 
Falls of St. Anthony to the sea, was assassinated by one of his 
envious followers, but not until he had earned the immortal fame 
of being the father of western colonization. 

Thus were the North American settlements effected. In 1688, 
England possessed those colonies which border on the Atlantic 
Ocean, from Maine to Georgia. The French possessed Nova 
Scotia, Canada, Louisiana, and claimed the countries bordering on 
the Mississippi and its branches, from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake 
Superior, and also the territories around the great lakes. 

A mutual jealousy, as was to be expected, sprung up between 
France and England respecting their colonial possessions. Both 
kingdoms aimed at the sovereignty of North America. The 
French were entitled, perhaps, by right of discovery, to the greater 
extent of territory ; but their colonies were very unequal to those 
of the English in respect to numbers, and still more so in moral 
elevation and intellectual culture. 

But Louis XIV., then in the height of his power, meditated 
the complete subjection of the English settlements. The French 
allied themselves with the Indians, and savage wars were the re- 
sult. The Mohawks and other tribes, encouraged by the French, 



CHAP. XX.] PROSPERITY OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES. 335 

committed fearful massacres at Deerfield and Haverhill, and the 
English settlers were kept in a state of constant alarm and fear. 
By the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the colonists obtained peace and 
considerable accession of territory. In 1720, John Law proposed 
his celebrated financial scheme to the prince regent of France, 
and the Mississippi Company was chartered, and Louisiana colo- 
nized. Much profit was expected to be derived from this company. 
It will be seen, hi another chapter, how miserably it failed. It 
was based on wrong foundations, and the project of deriving wealth 
from the colonies came to nought .; nor did it result in a rapid 
colonization. 

Meanwhile the English colonies advanced in wealth, numbers, 
and political importance, and attracted the notice of the English 
government. Sir Robert Walpole, in 1711, was solicited to tax 
the colonies ; but he nobly rejected the proposal. He encouraged 
trade to the utmost latitude, and tribute was only levied by means 
of consumption of British manufactures. But restrictions were 
subsequently imposed on colonial enterprise, which led to collisions 
between the colonies and the mother country. The Southern 
colonies were more favored than the Northern, but all of them were 
regarded with the view of promoting the peculiar interests of 
Great Britain. Other subjects of dispute also arose ; but, never- 
theless, the colonies, especially those of New England, made rapid 
strides. There was a general diffusion of knowledge, the laws 
were well observed, and the ministers of religion were an honor 
to their sacred calling. The earth was subdued, and replenished 
with a hardy and religious set of men. Sentiments of patriotism 
and independence were ardently cherished. The people were 
trained to protect themselves ; and, in their town meetings, learned 
to discuss political questions, and to understand political rights. 
Some ecclesiastical controversies disturbed the peace of parishes 
and communities, but did not retard the general prosperity. Some 
great lights also appeared. David Brainard performed labors of 
disinterestedness and enlightened piety, which have never been 
surpassed, and never equalled, even in zeal and activity, except 
by those of the earlier Jesuits. Jonathan Edwards stamped his 
genius on the whole character of New England theology, and 
won the highest honor as a metaphysician, even from European 



336 FRENCH ENCROACHMENTS. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

admirers. His treatise on the Freedom of the Will has secured 
the praises of philosophers and divines of all sects and parties, 
from Hume to Chalmers, and can " never be attentively perused 
without a sentiment of admiration at the strength and stretch of 
the human understanding." Benjamin Franklin also had arisen : 
he had not, at this early epoch, distinguished himself for philo- 
sophical discoveries ; but he had attracted attention as the editor 
of a newspaper, in which he fearlessly defended freedom of speech 
and the great rights of the people. But greater than Franklin, 
greater than any hero which modern history has commemorated, 
was that young Virginia planter, who was then watching, with 
great solicitude, the interests and glory of his country, and 
preparing himself for the great conflicts which have given him 
immortality. 

The growth of the colonies, and their great importance in the 
eyes of the Europeans, had now provoked the jealousy of the two 
leading powers of Europe, and the colonial struggle between 
England and France began. 

The French claimed the right of erecting a chain of fortresses 
along the Ohio and the Mississippi, with a view to connect Canada 
with Louisiana, and thus obtain a monopoly of the fur trade with 
the Indians, and secure the possession of the finest part of the 
American continent. But these designs were displeasing to the 
English colonists, who had already extended their settlements far 
into the interior. The English ministry was also indignant in 
view of these movements, by which the colonies were completely 
surrounded by military posts. England protested ; but the French 
artfully protracted negotiations until the fortifications were com- 
pleted. 

It was to protest against the erection of these fortresses that 
George Washington, then twenty-three years of age, was sent by 
the colony of Virginia to the banks of the Ohio. That journey 
through the trackless wilderness, attended but by one person, in no 
slight degree marked him out, and prepared him for his subse- 
quently great career. 

While the disputes about the forts were carried on between the 
cabinets of France and England, the French prosecuted their 
encroachments in America with great boldness, which doubtless 



CHAP. XX.] EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN THE EAST. 337 

hastened the rupture between the two countries. Orders were 
sent to the colonies to drive the French from their usurpations in 
Nova Scotia, and from their fortified posts upon the Ohio. Then 
commenced that great war, which resulted in the loss of the French 
possessions in America. But this war was also allied with the 
contests which grew out of the Austrian Succession, and therefore 
will be presented in a separate chapter on the Pelham administra- 
tion, during which the Seven Years' War, in the latter years of 
the reign of George II., commenced. 

But the colonial jealousy between England and France existed 
not merely in view of the North American colonies, but also those 
in the East Indies ; and these must be alluded to in order to form a 
general idea of European colonization, and of the causes which 
led to the mercantile importance of Great Britain, as well as to 
the great wars which desolated the various European nations. 

From the difficulties in the American colonies, we turn to 
those, therefore, which existed in the opposite quarter of the 
globe. Even to those old countries had European armies pen- 
etrated ; even there European cupidity and enterprise were exer- 
cised. 

As late as 1742, the territories of the English in India scarcely 
extended beyond the precincts of the towns in which were located 
the East India Company's servants. The first English settlement 
of importance was on the Island of Java ; but, in 1658, a grant of 
land was obtained on the Coromandel coast, near Madras, where 
was erected the strong fortress of St. George. In 1668, the Island 
of Bombay was ceded by the crown of Portugal to Charles II., 
and appointed the capital of the British settlements in India. In 
1698, the English had a settlement on the Hooghly, which after- 
wards became the metropolis of British power. 

But the Dutch, and Portuguese, and French had also colonies 
in India for purposes of trade. Louis XIV. established a com- 
pany, in imitation of the English, which sought a settlement on 
the Hooghly. The French company also had built a fort on 
the coast of the Carnatic, about eighty miles south of Madras, 
called Pondicherry, and had colonized two fertile islands in the 
Indian Ocean, which they called the Isle of France and the Isle 
of Bourbon. The possessions of the French were controlled by 
29 



338 FKENCH SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA. [CHAP. XX. 

4 

two presidencies, one on the Isle of France, and the other at 
Pondicheny. 

When the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, 
these two French presidencies were ruled by two men of superior 
genius, — La Bourdonnais and Dupleix, — both of them men of 
great experience in Indian affairs, and both devoted to the interests 
of the company, so far as their own personal ambition would 
permit. When Commodore Burnet, with an English squadron, 
was sent into the Indian seas, La Bourdonnais succeeded in fitting 
out an expedition to oppose it, and even contemplated the capture 
of Madras. No decisive action was fought at sea ; but the French 
governor succeeded in taking Madras. This success displeased 
the Nabob of the Carnatic, and he sent a letter to Dupleix, and 
complained of the aggression of his countrymen in attacking a 
place under his protection. Dupleix, envious of the fame of La 
Bourdonnais, and not pleased with the terms of capitulation, as 
being too favorable to the English, claimed the right of annulling 
the conquest, since Madras, when taken, would fall under his own 
presidency. 

The contentions between these two Frenchmen prevented La 
Bourdonnais from following up the advantage of his victory, and 
he failed in his attempts to engage the English fleet, and, in 
consequence, returned to France, and died from the effects of an 
unjust imprisonment in the Bastile. 

Dupleix, after the departure of La Bourdonnais, brought the 
principal inhabitants of Madras to Pondicheny. But some of 
them contrived to escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, 
then a clerk in a mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into 
the company's service, and soon found occasion to distinguish 
himself. 

But Dupleix, master of Madras, now formed the scheme of 
founding an Indian empire, and of expelling the English from the 
Carnatic. And India was in a state to favor his enterprises. The 
empire of the Great Mogul, whose capital was Delhi, was tottering 
from decay. It had been, in the sixteenth century, the most pow- 
erful empire in the world. The magnificence of his palaces 
astonished even Europeans accustomed to the splendor of Paris 
and Versailles. His viceroys ruled over provinces larger and 



CHAP. XX.] LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. 339 

richer than either France or England. And even the lieutenants 
of these viceroys frequently aspired to independence. 

The Nabob of Arcot was one of these latter princes. He hated 
the French, and befriended the English. On the death of the 
Viceroy of Deccan, to whom he was subject, in 1748, Dupleix 
conceived his gigantic scheme of conquest. To the throne of this 
viceroy there were several claimants, two of whom applied to the 
French for assistance. This was what the Frenchman desired, 
and he allied himself with the pretenders. With the assistance of 
the French, Mirzappa Juy obtained the viceroyalty. Dupleix was 
splendidly rewarded, and was intrusted with the command of 
seven thousand Indian cavalry, and received a present of two 
hundred thousand pounds. 

The only place on the Carnatic which remained in possession 
of the rightful viceroy was Trichinopoly, and this was soon in- 
vested by the French and Indian forces. 

To raise this siege, and turn the tide of French conquest, be- 
came the object of Clive, then twenty-five years of age. He 
represented to his superior the importance of this post, and also of 
striking a decisive blow. He suggested the plan of an attack on 
Arcot itself, the residence of the nabob. His project was ap- 
proved, and he was placed at the head of a force of three hundred 
sepoys and two hundred Englishmen.! The city was taken by 
surprise, and its capture induced the nabob to relinquish the siege 
of Trichinopoly in order to retake his capital. But Clive so 
intrenched his followers, that they successfully defended the place, 
after exhibiting prodigies of valor. The fortune of war turned to 
the side of the gallant Englishman, and Dupleix, who was no gen- 
eral, retreated before the victors. Clive obtained the command 
of Fort St. David, an important fortress near Madras, and soon 
controlled the Carnatic. 

About this time, the settlements on the Hooghly were plundered 
by Suraj-w Dowlah, Viceroy of Bengal. Bengal was the most 
fertile and populous province of the empire of the Great Mogul. 
It was watered by the Ganges, the sacred river of India, and its 
cities were surprisingly rich. Its capital was Mooshedabad, a city 
nearly as large as London ; and here the young viceroy lived in 
luxury and effeminacy, and indulged in every species of cruelty 



340 clive's victories. [chap. xx. 

4 

and folly. He hated the English of Calcutta, and longed to 
plunder them. He accordingly seized the infant city, and shut up 
one hundred and forty of the colonists in a dungeon of the fort, a 
room twenty feet by fourteen, with only two small windows ; and, 
in a few hours, one hundred and seventeen of the English died. 
The horrors of that night have been splendidly painted by Macau- 
lay in his essay on Clive, and the place of torment, called the 
Black Hole of Calcutta, is synonymous with suffering and misery. 
Clive resolved to avenge this insult to his countrymen. An expe- 
dition was fitted out at Madras to punish the inhuman nabob, 
consisting of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred sepoys. 
It was a small force, but proved sufficient. Calcutta was recovered, 
and the army of the nabob was routed. Clive intrigued with the 
enemies of the despot in his own city ; and, by means of unparal- 
leled treachery, dissimulation, art, and violence, Suraj-w Dowlah 
was deposed, and Meer Jafner, one of the conspirators, was made 
nabob in his place. In return for the services of Clive, the new 
viceroy splendidly rewarded him. A hundred boats conveyed the 
treasures of Bengal down the river to Calcutta. Clive himself, 
who had walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with 
diamonds and rubies, condescended to receive a present of three 
hundred thousand pounds. His moderation has been commended 
by his biographers in not asking for a million. 

The elevation of Meer Jafner was, of course, displeasing to the 
imbecile Emperor of India, and a large army was sent to dethrone 
him. The nabob appealed, in his necessity, to his allies, the Eng- 
lish, and, with the powerful assistance of the Europeans, the forces 
of the successor of the great Aurungzebe were signally routed. 
But the great sums he was obliged to bestow on his allies, and the 
encroaching spirit which they manifested, changed his friendship 
into enmity. He plotted with the Dutch and the French to over- 
turn the power of the English. Clive divined his object, and 
Meer Jafner was deposed in his turn. The Viceroy of Bengal was 
but the tool of his English protectors, and British power was 
firmly planted in the centre of India. Calcutta became the capital 
of a great empire, and the East India Company, a mere assem- 
blage of merchants and stockjobbers, by their system of perfidy, 
craft, and violence, became the rulers and disposers of provinces 



CHAP. XX.] CONQUEST OF INDIA. 341 

which Alexander had coveted in vain. The servants of this 
company made their fortunes, and untold wealth was transported 
to England. Clive obtained a fortune of forty thousand pounds a 
year, an Irish peerage, and a seat in the House of Commons. He 
became an object of popular idolatry, courted by ministers, and 
extolled by Pitt. He was several times appointed governor-gen- 
eral of the country he had conquered, and to him England is 
indebted for the foundation of her power in India. But his fame 
and fortune finally excited the jealousy of his countrymen, and he 
was made to bear the sins of the company which he had enriched. 
The malignity with which he was pursued, and the disease which 
he acquired in India, operated unfortunately on a temper naturally 
irritable ; his reason became overpowered, and he died, in 1774, 
by his own hand. 

The subsequent career of Hastings, and final conquest of India, 
form part of the political history of England itself, during those 
administrations which yet remain to be described. The coloniza- 
tion of America and the East Indies now became involved with 
the politics of rival statesmen ; and its histoiy can only be appre- 
ciated by considering those acts and principles which marked the 
career of the Newcastles and the Pitts. The administration of 
the Pelhams, therefore, next claims attention. 



References. — The best histories pertaining to the conquests of the 
Spaniards are undoubtedly those of Mr. Prescott. Irving's Columbus 
should also be consulted. For the early history of the North American 
colonies, the attention of students is directed to Grahame's and Bancroft's 
Histories of the United States. In regard to India, see Elphinstone's, 
Gleig's, Ormes's, and Mills's Histories of India; Malcolm's Life of Clive; 
and Macaulay's Essay on Clive. For the contemporaneous history of 
Great Britain, the best works are those of Tyndal, Smollett, Lord Ma- 
hon, and Belsham; Russell's Modern Europe; the Pictorial History of 
England; and the continuation of Mackintosh, in Lardner's Cabinet 
Cyclopedia. 

29* 



342 THE PELHAMS. [CHAP. XXI. 

4 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. 

The English nation acquiesced in the government of Sir Robert 
Walpole for nearly thirty years — the longest administration in 
the annals of the country. And he was equal to the task, ruling, 
on the whole, beneficently, promoting peace, regulating the finances, 
and encouraging those great branches of industry which lie at 
the foundation of English wealth and power. But the intrigues 
of rival politicians, and the natural desire of change, which all 
parties feel after a long repose, plunged the nation into war, and 
forced the able minister to retire. The opposition, headed by the 
Prince of Wales, supported by such able statesmen as Bolingbroke, 
Carteret, Chesterfield, Pulteney, Windham, and Pitt, and sustained 
by the writings of those great literary geniuses whom Walpole 
disdained and neglected, compelled George II., at last, to part with 
a man who had conquered his narrow prejudices. 

But the Tories did not come into power on the retirement of 
Walpole. His old confederates remained at the head of affairs, 
and Carteret, afterwards Lord Grenville, the most brilliant man 
of his age, became the leading minister. But even he, so great 
in debate, and so distinguished for varied attainments, did not long 
retain his place. None of the abuses which existed under the 
former administration were removed ; • and moreover the war, 
which the nation had clamored for, had proved disastrous. He 
also had to bear the consequences of Walpole's temporizing pol- 
icy, which could no longer be averted. 

The new ministry was headed by Henry Pelham, as first lord 
of the treasury and chancellor of the . exchequer, and by the 
Duke of Newcastle, as principal secretary of state. These two 
men formed, also, a coalition with the leading members of both 
houses of parliament, Tories as well as Whigs ; and, for the first 
time since the accession of the Stuarts, there was no opposition. 
This great coalition was called the " Broad Bottom," and compre- 



CHAP. XXI.] THE PRETENDER CHARLES EDWARD STUART. 343 

hended the Duke of Bedford, the Earls of Chesterfield and Har- 
rington, Lords Lyttleton and Hardwicke, Sir Henry Cotton, Mr. 
Doddington, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Murray. The three latter 
statesmen were not then formidable. 

The Pelhams were descended from one of the oldest, proudest, 
and richest families in England, and had an immense parliament- 
ary influence from their aristocratic connections, their wealth, and 
their experience. They were not remarkable for genius so much 
as for sagacity, tact, and intrigue. They were extremely ambi- 
tious, and fond of place and power. They ruled England as the 
representatives of the aristocracy — the last administration which 
was able to defy the national will. After their fall, the people had 
a greater voice in the appointment of ministers. Pitt and Fox 
were commoners in a different sense from what Walpole was, and 
represented that class which has ever since ruled England, — not 
nobles, not the democracy, but a class between them, composed 
of the gentry, landed proprietors, lawyers, merchants, manufac- 
turers, men of leisure, and their dependants. 

The administration of the Pelhams is chiefly memorable for the 
Scotch rebellion of 1745, and for the great European war which 
grew out of colonial and commercial ambition, and the encroach- 
ments of Frederic the Great. 

The Scotch rebellion was produced by the attempts of the young 
Pretender, Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart, to regain 
the throne of his ancestors. His adventures have the interest of 
romance, and have generally excited popular sympathy. He was 
born at Rome in 1720 ; served, at the age of fifteen, under the 
Duke of Berwick, in Spain, and, at the age of twenty, received 
overtures from some discontented people of Scotland to head an 
insurrection. There was, at this time, great public distress, and 
George II. was exceedingly unpopular. The Jacobites were 
powerful, and thousands wished for a change, including many 
persons of rank and influence. 

With only seven followers, in a small vessel, he landed on one 
of the Western Islands, 18th of July, 1745. Even had the prom- 
ises which had been made to him by France, or by people in 
Scotland, been fulfilled, his enterprise would have been most 
hazardous. But, without money, men, or arms, his hopes were 



344 SURRENDER OF EDINBURGH. [CHAP. XXI. 

desperate. Still he cherished that presumptuous self-confidence 
which so often passes for bravery, and succeeded better than 
could have been anticipated. Several chieftains of the Highland 
clans joined his standard, and he had the faculty of gaining the 
hearts of his followers. At Borrodaile occurred his first interview 
with the chivalrous Donald Cameron of Lochiel, who was per- 
fectly persuaded of the desperate character of his enterprise, but 
nevertheless aided it with generous self-devotion. 

The standard of Charles Edward was raised at Glenfinnan, on 
the 19th of August, and a little band of seven hundred adven- 
turers and enthusiastic Highlanders resolved on the conquest of 
England ! Never was devotion to an unfortunate cause more 
romantic and sincere. Never were energies more generously 
made, or more miserably directed. But the first gush of enthusi- 
asm and bravery was attended with success, and the Pretender 
soon found himself at the head of fifteen hundred men, and on 
his way to Edinburgh, marching among people friendly to his 
cause, whom he endeared by every attention and gentlemanly 
artifice. The simple people of the north of Scotland were won 
by his smiles and courtesy, and were astonished at the exertions 
which the young prince made, and the fatigues he was able to 
endure. 

On the 15th of September, Charles had reached Linlithgow, 
only sixteen miles from Edinburgh, where he was magnificently 
entertained in the ancient and favorite palace of the kings of Scot- 
land. Two days after, he made his triumphal entry into the 
capital of his ancestors, the place being unprepared for resistance. 
Colonel Gardiner, with his troop of dragoons, was faithful to his 
trust, and the magistrates of Edinburgh did all in their power to 
prevent the surrender of the city. But the great body of the 
citizens preferred to trust to the clemency of Charles, than run 
the risk of defence. 

Thus, without military stores, or pecuniary resources, or pow- 
erful friends, simply by the power of persuasion, the Pretender, in 
the short space of two months from his landing in Scotland, quietly 
took possession of the most powerful city of the north. The 
Jacobites put no restraint to their idolatrous homage, and the ladies 
welcomed the young and handsome chevalier with extravagant 



CHAP. XXI.] SUCCESS OF THE PRETENDER. 345 

adulation. Even the Whigs pitied him, and permitted him to 
enjoy his brief hour of victory. 

At Edinburgh, Charles received considerable reenforcement, 
and took from the castle one thousand stand of arms. He gave 
his followers but little time for repose, and soon advanced against 
the royal army commanded by Sir John Cope. The two armies 
met at Preston, and were of nearly equal force. The attack was 
made by the invader, and was impetuous and unlooked for. Noth- 
ing could stand before the enthusiasm and valor of the Highlanders, 
and in five minutes the rout commenced, and a great slaughter 
of the regular army occurred. Among those who fell was the 
distinguished Colonel Gardiner, an old veteran, who refused to fly. 

Charles followed up his victory with moderation, and soon was 
master of all Scotland. He indulged his taste for festivities, at 
Holy rood, for a while, and neglected no means to conciliate the 
Scotch. He flattered their prejudices, gave balls and banquets, 
made love to their most beautiful women, and denied no one ac- 
cess to his presence. Poets sang his praises, and women extolled 
his heroism and beauty. The light, the gay, the romantic, and 
the adventurous were on his side ; but the substantial and wealthy 
classes were against him, for they knew he must be conquered hi 
the end. 

Still his success had been remarkable, and for it he was indebted 
to the Highlanders, who did not wish to make him king of Eng- 
land, but only king of Scotland. But Charles deceived them. He 
wanted the sceptre of George II. ; and when he commenced his 
march into England, their spirits flagged, and his cause became 
hopeless. There was one class of men who were inflexibly hostile 
to him — the Presbyterian ministers. They looked upon him, 
from the first, with coldness and harshness, and distrusted both his 
religion and sincerity. On them all his arts, and flattery, and 
graces were lost ; and they represented the substantial part of the 
Scottish nation. It is extremely doubtful whether Charles could 
ever have held Edinburgh, even if English armies had not been 
sent against him. 

But Charles had played a desperate game from the beginning, 
for the small chance of winning a splendid prize. He, therefore, 
after resting his troops, and collecting all the force he could, turned 



346 THE RETREAT OF THE PRETENDER. [CHAP. XXI. 

4 

his face to England at the head of five thousand men, well armed 
and well clothed, but discontented and dispirited. They had never 
contemplated the invasion of England, but only the recovery of 
the ancient independence of Scotland. 

On the 8th of November, the Pretender set foot upon English 
soil, and entered Carlisle in triumph. But his forces, instead of 
increasing, diminished, and no popular enthusiasm supported the 
courage of his troops. But he advanced towards the south, and 
reached Derby unmolested on the 4th of December. There he 
learned that the royal army, headed by the Duke of Cumberland, 
with twelve thousand veterans, was advancing rapidly against him. 

His followers clamored to return, and refused to advance another 
step. They now fully perceived that success was not only hope- 
less, but that victory would be of no advantage to them ; that they 
would be sacrificed by a man who only aimed at the conquest 
of England. 

Charles was well aware of the desperate nature of the contest, 
but had no desire to retreat. His situation was not worse than 
what it had been when he landed on the Hebrides. Having pene- 
trated to within one hundred and twenty miles of London, against 
the expectations of every one, why should he not persevere ? 
Some unlooked-for success, some lucky incidents, might restore 
him to the throne of his grandfather. Besides, a French army of 
ten thousand was about to land in England. The Duke of Norfolk, 
the first nobleman in the country, was ready to declare in his favor. 
London was in commotion. A chance remained. 

But his followers thought only of their homes, and Charles was 
obliged to yield to an irresistible necessity. Like Richard Coeur 
de Lion after the surrender of Acre, he was compelled to return, 
without realizing the fruit of bravery and success. Like the lion- 
hearted king, pensive and sad, sullen and miserable, he gave the 
order to retreat. His spirits, hitherto buoyant and gladsome, now 
fell, and despondency and despair succeeded vivacity and hope. 
He abandoned himself to grief and vexation, lingered behind his 
retreating army, and was reckless of his men and of their welfare. 
And well he may have been depressed. The motto of Hampden, 
" Vestigia nulla retrorsum" had also governed him. But others 
would not be animated by it, and he was ruined. 



CHAP. XXI.] BATTLE OF CULL0DEN. 347 

But his miserable and dejected army succeeded in reaching 
their native soil, although pursued by the cavalry of two powerful 
armies, in the midst of a hostile population, and amid great sufferings 
from hunger and fatigue. On the 26th of December, he entered 
Glasgow, levied a contribution on the people, and prepared him- 
self for his final battle. He retreated to the Highlands, and spent 
the winter in recruiting his troops, and in taking fortresses. On 
the 15th of April, 1746, he drew up his army on the moor of 
Culloden, near Inverness, with the desperate resolution of attacking, 
with vastly inferior forces, the Duke of Cumberland, intrenched 
nine miles distant. The design was foolish and unfortunate. 
It was early discovered; and the fresh troops of the royal duke 
attacked the dispirited, scattered, and wearied followers of Charles 
Edward before they could form themselves in battle array. They 
defended themselves with valor. But what is valor against over- 
whelming force ? The army of Charles was totally routed, and 
his hopes were blasted forever. 

The most horrid barbarities and cruelties were inflicted by the 
victors. The wounded were left to die. The castles of rebel 
chieftains were razed to the ground. Herds and flocks were 
driven away, and the people left to perish with hunger. Some of 
the captives were sent to Barbadoes, others were imprisoned, and 
many were shot, A reward of thirty thousand pounds was placed 
on the head of the Pretender ; but he nevertheless escaped. After 
wandering a while as a fugitive, disguised, wearied, and miserable, 
hunted from fortress to fortress, and from island to island, he suc- 
ceeded, by means of the unparalleled loyalty and fidelity of his 
few Highland followers, in securing a vessel, and in escaping to 
France. His adventures among the Western Islands, especially those 
which happened while wandering, in the disguise of a female ser- 
vant, with Flora Macdonald, are highly romantic and wonderful. 
Equally wonderful is the fact that, of the many to whom his secret 
was intrusted, not one was disposed to betray him, even in view 
of so splendid a bribe as thirty thousand pounds. But this fact, 
though surprising, is not inconceivable. Had Washington been 
unfortunate in his contest with the mother country, and had he 
wandered as a fugitive amid the mountains of Vermont, would not 
many Americans have shielded him, even in view of a reward 
of one hundred thousand pounds ? 



348 LATTER DAYS OF THE PRETENDER. [CHAP. XXI. 



4 



The latter days of the Pretender were spent in Rome and Flor- 
ence. He married a Polish princess, and assumed the title of 
Duke of Albany. He never relinquished the hope of securing the 
English crown, and always retained his politeness and grace of 
manner. But he became an object of pity, not merely from his 
poverty and misfortunes, but also from the vice of intemperance, 
which he acquired in Scotland. He died of apoplexy, in 1788, 
and left no legitimate issue. The last male heir of the house of 
Stuart was the Cardinal of York, who died in 1807, and who was 
buried in St. Peter's Cathedral ; over whose mortal remains was 
erected a marble monument, by Canova, through the munificence 
of George IV., to whom the cardinal had left the crown jewels 
which James II. had carried with him to France. This monument 
bears the names of James III., Charles III., and Henry EX., kings 
of England ; titles never admitted by the English. With the battle 
of Culloden expired the hopes of the Catholics and Jacobites to 
restore Catholicism and the Stuarts. 

The great European war, which was begun by Sir Robert Wal- 
pole, not long before his retirement, was another great event which 
happened during the administration of the Pelhams, and with which 
their administration was connected. The Spanish war was fol- 
lowed by the war of the Austrian Succession. 

Maria Theresa, Queen of Bohemia, ascended the oldest and 
proudest throne of Europe, — that of Germany, — amid a host of 
claimants. The Elector of Bavaria laid claim to her hereditary 
dominions in Bohemia ; the King of Sardinia made pretension to 
the duchy of Milan ; while the Kings of Poland, Spain, France, 
and Prussia disputed with her her rights to the whole Austrian 
succession. Never were acts of gross injustice meditated with 
greater audacity. Just as the young and beautiful princess ascended 
the throne of Charlemagne, amid embarrassments and perplexities, 

— such as an exhausted treasury, a small army, a general scarcity, 
threatened hostilities with the Turks, and absolute war with France, 

— the new king of Prussia, Frederic, surnamed the Great, availing 
himself of her distresses, seized one of the finest provinces of her 
empire. The first notice which the queen had of the seizure of 
Silesia, was an insulting speech from the Prussian ambassador. 
" I come," said he, " with safety for the house of Austria on the 



CHAP. XXI.] MARIA THERESA. ' 349 

one hand, and the imperial crown for your royal highness on the 
other. The troops of my master are at the service of the queen, 
and cannot fail of being acceptable, at a time when she is in want 
of both. And as the king, my master, from the situation of his 
dominions, will be exposed fo great danger from this alliance with 
the Queen of Hungary, it is hoped that, as an indemnification, the 
queen will not offer him less than the whole duchy of Silesia." 

The queen, of course, was indignant in view of this cool piece 
of villany, and prepared to resist. War with all the continental 
powers was the result. France joined the coalition to deprive the 
queen of her empire. Two French armies invaded Germany. 
The Elector of Bavaria marched, with a hostile army, to within 
eight miles of Vienna. The King of Prussia made himself mas- 
ter of Silesia. Abandoned by all her allies, — without an army, 
or ministers, or money, — the queen fled to Hungary, her heredi- 
tary dominions, and threw herself on the generosity of her sub- 
jects. She invoked the states of the Diet, and, clad in deep 
mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, and a cim- 
eter at her side, she traversed the hall in which her nobles were 
assembled, and addressed them, in the immortal language of Rome, 
respecting her wrongs and her distresses. Her faithful subjects 
responded to her call ; and youth, beauty, and rank, in distress, 
obtained their natural triumph. " A thousand swords leaped from 
their scabbards," and the old hall rung with the cry,/' We 
will die for our queen, Maria Theresa." Tears started from the 
eyes of the queen, whom misfortunes and insult could not bend 
and called forth, even more than her words, the enthusiasm of her 
subjects. 

It was in defence of this injured and noble queen that the Eng- 
lish parliament voted supplies and raised armies. This was the 
war which characterized the Pelham administration, and to which 
Walpole was opposed. But it will be further presented, when allu- 
sion is made to Frederic the Great. 

France no sooner formed an alliance with Prussia, against Aus- 
tria, than the " balance of power " seemed to be disturbed. To 
restore this balance, and preserve Austria, was the aim of Eng- 
land. To the desire to preserve this power may be traced most 
of the wars of the eighteenth century. The idea of a balance of 
30 



350 CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG. [cHAP. XXI. 

4 

power was the leading principle which animated all the diplomatic 
transactions of Europe for more than a century. 

By the treaty of Breslau, (1742,) Maria Theresa yielded up to 
Frederic the province of Silesia, and Europe might have remained 
at peace. But as England and France were both involved in the 
contest, their old spirit of rivalry returned ; and, from auxiliaries, 
they became principals in the war, and soon renewed it. The 
theatre of strife was changed from Germany to Holland, and the 
arms of France were triumphant. The Duke of Cumberland was 
routed by Marshal Saxe at the great battle of Fontenoy ; and this 
battle restored peace, for a while, to Germany. The Grand Duke 
of Tuscany, husband of Maria Theresa, was elected Emperor of 
Germany, and assumed the title of Francis I. 

But it was easier to restore tranquillity to Germany, than peace 
between England and France ; both powers panting for military 
glory, and burning with mutual jealousy. The peace of Aix la 
Chapelle, in 1748, was a truce rather than a treaty ; and France 
and England soon found occasion to plunge into new hostilities. 

During the war of the Austrian Succession, hostilities had not 
been confined to the continent of Europe. As colonial jealousy 
was one of the animating principles of two of the leading powers 
in the contest, the warfare extended to the colonies themselves. 
A body of French, from Cape Breton, surprised the little English 
garrison of Causian, destroyed the fort and fishery, and removed 
eighty men, as prisoners of war, to Louisburg — the strongest 
fortress, next to Quebec, in French America. These men were 
afterwards sent to Boston, on parole, and, while there, communi- 
cated to Governor Shirley the state of the fortress in which they 
had been confined. Shirley resolved to capture it, and the legis- 
lature of Massachusetts voted supplies for the expedition. All the 
New England colonies sent volunteers ; and the united forces, of 
about four thousand men were put under the command of William 
Pepperell, a merchant at Kittery Point, near Portsmouth. The 
principal part of the forces was composed of fishermen ; but they 
were Yankees. Amid the fogs of April, this little army, rich in 
expedients, set sail to take a fortress which five hundred men could 
defend against five thousand. But they were successful, aided by 
an English fleet ; and, after a siege of three months, Louisburg 



CHAP. XXI.] GREAT COLONIAL CONTEST. 351 

surrendered, (1745) — justly deemed the greatest achievement of 
the whole war. 

But the French did not relinquish their hopes of gaining an 
ascendency on the American continent, and prosecuted their labors 
of erecting on the Ohio their chain of fortifications, to connect 
Canada with Louisiana. The erection of these forts was no small 
cause of the breaking out of fresh hostilities. When the contest 
was renewed between Maria Theresa and Frederic the Great, and 
the famous Seven Years' War began, the English resolved to con- 
quer all the French possessions in America. 

Without waiting, however, for directions from England, Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, raised a regiment of troops, of which 
George Washington was made lieutenant-colonel, and with which 
he marched across the wilderness to attack Fort Du Quesne, now 
Pittsburg, at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela 
Rivers. 

That unsuccessful expedition was the commencement of the 
great colonial contest in which Canada was conquered. Early in 
1755, General Braddock was sent to America to commence offen- 
sive operations. The colonies cooperated, and three expeditions 
were planned ; one to attack Fort Du Quesne, a second to attack 
Fort Niagara, and a third to attack Crown Point. The first was 
to be composed of British troops, under Braddock, the second of 
American, under Governor Shirley, and the third of militia of the 
northern colonies. 

The expedition against Fort Du Quesne was a memorable 
failure. Braddock was a brave man, but unfitted for his work, 
Hyde Park having hitherto been the only field of his military 
operations. Moreover, with that presumption and audacity which 
then characterized his countrymen, he affected sovereign contempt 
for his American associates, and would listen to no advice. Un- 
acquainted with Indian warfare, and ignorant of the country, he 
yet pressed towards the interior, until, within ten miles of Fort Du 
Quesne, he was surprised by a body of French and Indians, and 
taken in an ambuscade. Instant retreat might still have saved 
him ; but he was too proud not to fight according to rule ; and he 
fell mortally wounded. Washington was the only mounted officer 
that escaped being killed or wounded. By his prudent and skilful 



352 CHARACTEE OF THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. [CHAP. ZXI. 

4 

management, he saved half of his men, who formed after the 
the battle, and effected a retreat. 

The other two expeditions also failed, chiefly through want of 
union between the provincial governor and the provincial assem- 
blies, and also from the moral effects of the defeat of Braddock. 
Moreover, the colonies perfectly understood that they were fight- 
ing, not for liberty, but for the glory and ambition of the mother 
country, and therefore did not exhibit the ardor they evinced in 
the revolutionary struggle. 

But the failure of these expeditions contributed to make the 
ministry of the Duke of Newcastle unpopular. Other mistakes 
were also made in the old world. The conduct of Admiral Byng 
in the Mediterranean excited popular clamor. The repeated dis- 
appointments and miscarriages, the delay of armaments, the 
neglect of opportunities, the absurd disposition of fleets, were 
numbered among the misfortunes which resulted from a weak and 
incapable ministry. Stronger men were demanded by the indig- 
nant voice- of the nation, and the Duke of Newcastle, first 
lord of the treasury, since the death of his brother, was obliged 
to call Mr. Pitt and Mr. Legge —the two most popular commoners 
of England — into the cabinet. But the new administration did 
not work harmoniously. It was an. emblem of that image which 
Nebuchadnezzar beheld in a vision, with a head of gold, and legs 
of iron, and feet of clay. Pitt and Legge were obliged by their 
colleague to resign. But their removal incensed the whole nation, 
and so great was the clamor, that the king was compelled to rein- 
state the popular idols — the only men capable of managing affairs 
at that crisis. Pitt became secretary of state, and Legge chancel- 
lor of the exchequer. The Duke of Newcastle, after being at the 
head of administration ten years, was, reluctantly, compelled to 
resign. The Duke of Devonshire became nominally the premier, 
but Pitt was the ruling spirit in the cabinet. 

The character of the Duke of Newcastle is thus sketched by 
Horace Walpole : " He had no pride, but infinite self-love. Jeal- 
ousy was the great source of all his faults. There was no 
expense to which he was addicted but generosity. His houses, 
gardens, table, and equipage, swallowed immense sums, and the 
sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted. He loved 



CHAP. XXI.] UNPOPULARITY OF THE PELHAMS. 353 

business immoderately, but was always doing it ; he never did it. 
His speeches were copious in words, but empty and unmeaning ; 
his professions extravagant, and his curiosity insatiable. He was 
a secretary of state without intelligence, a duke without money, a 
man of infinite intrigue without secrecy, and a minister hated by 
all parties, without being turned out by either." " All able men," 
adds Macaulay, " ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveller, a child who 
never knew his own mind an hour together ; and yet he over- 
reached them all." 

The Pelham administration cannot, on the whole, be called 
fortunate, nor, on the other hand, a disgraceful one. The Pel- 
hams " showed themselves," says Smyth, " friendly to the princi- 
ples of mild government. With all their faults, they were tolerant, 
peaceful, prudent ; they had the merit of respecting public opin- 
ion ; and though they were not fitted to advance the prosperity of 
their country by any exertions of political genius, they were not 
blind to such opportunities as fairly presented themselves. But 
they were not fitted for the stormy times in which they lived, and 
quietly yielded to the genius of a man whom they did not like, and 
whom the king absolutely hated. George II., against his will, 
was obliged to intrust the helm of state to the only man in the 
nation capable of holding it. 

The administration of William Pitt is emphatically the history 
of the civilized world, during a period of almost universal war. 
It was for his talents as a war minister that he was placed at the 
head of the government, and his policy, like that of his greater 
son, in a still more stormy epoch, was essentially warlike. In the 
eyes of his contemporaries, his administration was brilliant and 
successful, and he undoubtedly raised England to a high pitch 
of military glory ; but glory, alas ! most dearly purchased, since . 
it led to the imposition of taxes beyond a parallel, and the vast | | 
increase of the national debt. 

He was born in 1708, of good family, his grandfather having 
been governor of Madras, and the purchaser of the celebrated 
diamond which bears his name, and which was sold to the regent 
of France for one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. Wil- 
liam Pitt was sent to Oxford at the age of seventeen, and at 
twenty-seven, became a member of parliament. From the first 
30* 



354 RISE OF WILLIAM PITT. [CHAP. XXI. 

4 

he was heard with attention, and, when years and experience had 
given him wisdom and power, his eloquence was overwhelming. 
No one ever equalled him in brilliant invective and scorching 
sarcasm. He had not the skill of Fox in debate, nor was he a 
great reasoner, like Murray ; he did not talk philosophy, like 
Burke, nor was he master of details, like his son ; but he had an 
air of sincerity, a vehemence of feeling, an intense enthusiasm, 
and a moral elevation of sentiment, which bore every thing away 
before him. 

When Walpole was driven from power, Pitt exerted his elo- 
quence in behalf of the Pelham government. Being personally 
obnoxious to the king, he obtained no office. But he was not a 
man to be amused by promises long, and, as he would not render 
his indispensable services without a reward, he was made pay- 
master of the forces — a lucrative office, but one which did not give 
him a seat in the cabinet. This office he retained for eight years, 
which were years of peace. But when the horizon was over- 
clouded by the death of Henry Pelham, in 1754, and difficulties 
arose between France and England respecting North America 
and the East Indies ; when disasters in war tarnished the glory of 
the British arms, and the Duke of Newcastle showed his inca- 
pacity to meet the national crisis, Pitt commenced a furious oppo- 
sition. Of course he was dismissed from office. But the Duke 
of Newcastle could not do without him, and the king was obliged 
to call him into the cabinet as secretary of state, in 1756. But 
the administration did not work. The king opposed the views of 
Pitt, and he was compelled to resign. Then followed disasters 
and mistakes. The resignation of the Duke of Newcastle became 
an imperative necessity. Despondency and gloom hung over the 
nation, and he was left without efficient aid in the House of Com- 
mons. Nothing was left to the king but to call in the aid of the 
man he hated ; and Pitt, as well as Legge, were again reinstated, 
the Duke of Devonshire remaining nominally at the head of the 
administration. 

But this administration only lasted five months, during which 
Admiral Byng was executed, and the Seven Years 1 War, of which 
Frederic of Prussia was the hero, fairly commenced. In 1757, 
Pitt and his colleague were again dismissed. But never was 



CHAP. XXI.J BRILLIANT MILITARY SUCCESSES. 355 

popular resentment more fierce and terrible. Again was the king 
obliged to bend to the " great commoner." An arrangement was 
made, and a coalition formed. Pitt became secretary of state, and 
virtual premier, but the Duke of Newcastle came in as first lord 
of the treasury. But Pitt selected the cabinet. His brother-in- 
law, Lord Temple, was made keeper of the privy seal, and Lord 
Grenville was made treasurer of the navy; Fox became pay- 
master of the forces ; the Duke of Bedford received the lord lieu- 
tenancy of Ireland ; Hardwicke, the greatest lawyer of his age, 
became lord chancellor; Legge, the ablest financier, was made 
chancellor of the exchequer. Murray, a little while before, had 
been elevated to the bench, as Lord Mansfield. There was 
scarcely an eminent man in the House of Commons who was not 
made a member of the administration. All the talent of the 
nation was laid at the feet of Pitt, and he had the supreme direc- 
tion of the army and of foreign affairs. 

Then truly commenced the brilliant career of Pitt. He imme- 
diately prosecuted hostilities with great boldness, and on a gigan- 
tic scale. Immense armies were raised and sent to all parts of 
the world. 

But nothing raised the reputation of Pitt so highly as military 
operations in America. He planned, immediately on his assump- 
tion of supreme power as virtual dictator of England, three great 
expeditions — one against Louisburg, a second against Ticonderoga, 
and a third against Fort Du Quesne. Two of these were attended 
with triumphant success, (1758.) 

Louisburg, which had been surrendered to France by the treaty 
of Aix la Chapelle, was reduced by General Amherst, though 
only with a force of fourteen thousand men. 

General Forbes marched, with eight thousand men, against Fort 
Du Quesne ; but it was abandoned by the enemy before he 
reached it. 

Ticonderoga was not, however, taken, although the expedition 
was conducted by General Abercrombie, with a force of sixteen 
thousand men. 

Thus the largest military force ever known at one time in 
America was employed nearly a century ago, by William Pitt, 
composed of fifty thousand men, of whom twenty-two thousand 
were regular troops. 



356 MILITARY SUCCESSES IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XXI. 

4 

The campaign of 1759 was attended with greater results than 
even that of the preceding year. General Amherst succeeded Ab- 
ercrombie, and the plan for the reduction of Canada was intrusted 
to him for execution. Three great expeditions were projected : 
one was to be commanded by General Wolfe, who had distin- 
guished himself at the siege of Louisburg, and who had orders 
from the war secretary to ascend the St. Lawrence, escorted by 
the fleet, and lay siege to Quebec. The second army, of twelve 
thousand men, under General Amherst, was ordered to reduce 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point, cross Lake Champlain, and pro- 
ceed along the River Richelieu to the banks of the St. Lawrence, 
join General Wolfe, and assist in the reduction of Quebec. The 
third army was sent to Fort Niagara, the most important post in 
French America, since it commanded the lakes, and overawed 
the whole country of the Six Nations. After the reduction of this 
fort, the army was ordered down the St. Lawrence to besiege 
Montreal. 

That this project was magnificent, and showed the comprehen- 
sive military genius of Pitt, cannot be doubted. But that it was 
easy of execution may well be questioned, when it is remembered 
that the navigation of the St. Lawrence was difficult and danger- 
ous ; that the fortifications and strength of Quebec were unrivalled 
in the new world ; that the French troops between Montreal and 
Quebec numbered nine thousand men, besides Indians, commanded, 
too, by so great a general as Montcalm. Still all of these expe- 
ditions were successful. Quebec and Niagara were taken, and 
Crown Point and Ticonderoga were abandoned. 

The most difficult part of the enterprise was the capture of 
Quebec, which was one of the most brilliant military exploits ever 
performed, and which raised the English general to the very 
summit of military fame. He was disappointed in the expected 
cooperation of General Amherst, and he had to take one of the 
strongest forfresses in the world, defended by troops superior in 
number to his own. He succeeded in climbing the almost per- 
pendicular rock on which the fortress was built, and in overcoming 
a superior force. Wolfe died in the attack, but lived long enough 
to hear of the flight of the enemy. Nothing could exceed the 
tumultuous joy in England with which the news of the fall of 



CHAP. XXI.] VICTORIES OF CLIVE IN INDIA. 357 

Quebec was received ; nothing could surpass the interest with 
which the distant expedition was viewed ; and the depression of the 
French was equal to the enthusiasm of the English. Wolfe gained 
an immortal name, and a monument was erected to him in St. 
Paul's Cathedral. But Pitt reaped the solid and substantial advan- 
tages which resulted from the conquest of Canada, which soon 
followed the reduction of Quebec. He became the nation's idol, 
and was left to prosecute the various wars in which England was 
engaged, in his own way. 

While the English armies, under the direction of Pitt, were 
wresting from the French nearly all their possessions in America, 
Clive was adding a new continent to the great empire of Great 
Britain. India was conquered, and the British power firmly planted 
in the East. Moreover, the English allies on the continent — the 
Prussians — obtained great victories, which will be alluded to in 
the chapter on Frederic the Great. On all sides the English were 
triumphant, and were intoxicated with joy. The stocks rose, and 
the bells rang almost an incessant peal for victories. 

In the midst of these public rejoicings, King George II. died. 
He was a sovereign who never secured the affections of the nation, 
whose interests he sacrificed to those of his German electorate. 
" He had neither the qualities which make libertinism attractive, 
nor the qualities which make dulness respectable. He had been 
a bad son, and he made a worse father. Not one magnanimous 
action is recorded of him, but many meannesses. But his judg- 
ment was sound, his habits economical, and his spirit bold. These 
qualities prevented him from being despised, if they did not make 
him honored." 

His grandson, George III., entered upon his long reign, October, 
1760, in the twenty-third year of his age, and was universally 
admitted to be the most powerful monarch hi Christendom — or, 
rather, the monarch of the most powerful kingdom. He, or, rather, 
his ministers, resolved to prosecute the war with vigor, and parlia- 
ment voted liberal supplies. The object of Pitt was the humiliation 
of both France and Austria, and also the protection of Prussia, 
struggling against almost overwhelming forces. He secured his 
object by administering to the nation those draughts of flattery and 
military glory which intoxicated the people. 



358 RESIGNATION OF PITT. [CHAP. XXI. 

4 

However sincere the motives and brilliant the genius of the 
minister, it was impossible that a practical nation should not awake 
from the delusion which he so powerfully contributed to produce. 
People at last inquired " why England was to become a party in 
a dispute between two German powers, and why were the best 
English regiments fighting on the Maine ? " What was it to the 
busy shopkeeper of London that the Tower guns were discharged, 
and the streets illuminated, if he were to be additionally taxed ? 
Statesmen began to calculate the enormous sums which had been 
wasted in an expensive war, where nothing had been gained but 
glory. Besides, jealousies and enmities sprung up against Pitt. 
Some were offended by his haughtiness, and others were estranged 
by his withering invective. And his enemies were numerous and 
powerful. Even the cabinet ministers, who were his friends, 
turned against him. He wished to declare war against Spain, 
while the nation was bleeding at every pore. But the cabinet 
could not be persuaded of the necessity of the war, and Pitt, of 
course, resigned. But it was inevitable, and took place under his 
successor. Pitt left the helm of state with honor. He received a 
pension of three thousand pounds a year, and his wife was made 
a baroness. 

The Earl of Bute succeeded him as premier, and was the first 
Tory minister since the accession of the house of Hanover. His 
watchword was prerogative. The sovereign should no longer be 
a gilded puppet, but a real king — an impossible thing in England. 
But his schemes pleased the king, and Oxford University, and Dr. 
Johnson ; while his administration was assailed with a host of libels 
from Wilkes, Churchill, and other kindred firebrands. 

His main act was the peace he secured to Europe. The Whigs 
railed at it then, and rail at it now ; and Macaulay falls in with the 
lamentation of his party, and regrets that no better terms should 
have been made. But what can satisfy the ambition of England ? 
The peace of Paris, in 1763, stipulated that Canada, with the 
Island of St. John, and Cape Breton, and all that part of Louisi- 
ana which lies east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, should 
be ceded to Great Britain, and that the fortifications of Dunkirk 
should be destroyed ; that Spain should relinquish her claim to fish 
on the Banks of Newfoundland, should permit the English to cut 



CHAP. XXI.] PEACE OF PARIS.. . 359 

mahogany on the shores of Honduras Bay, and cede Florida and 
Minorca to Great Britain. In return for these things, the French 
were permitted to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland, and the 
Islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Belleisle, and St. Lucia were 
restored to them, and Cuba was restored to Spain. 

The peace of Paris, in 1763, constitutes an epoch ; and we 
hence turn to survey the condition of France since the death of 
Louis XIV., and also other continental powers. 



References. — Archdeacon Coxe's History of the Pelham Administra- 
tion. Thackeray's Life of Lord Chatham. Macaulay's Essay on Chatham. 
Horace Walpole's Reminiscences. Smyth's Lectures on Modern History. 
Jesse's Memoirs of the Pretenders. Graham's History of the United 
States, an exceedingly valuable work, but not sufficiently known. Lord 
Mahon's, Smollett's, Tyndal's, and Belsham's, are the standard histories 
of England, at this period ; also, the continuation of Mackintosh, and the 
Pictorial History, are valuable. See also the Marchmont Papers, Pay's 
History of the Rebellion, Horace "Walpole's Memoirs of George II., Lord 
Waldegrave's Memoirs, and Doddington's Diary. 



360 REGENCY OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS. [CHAP. XXII. 

4 

CHAPTER XXII. 

LOUIS XV. 

The reign of Louis XV. was one of the longest on record, 
extending from 1715 to 1774 — the greater part of the eighteenth 
century. But he was a child, only five years of age, on the death 
of his great grandfather, Louis XIV. ; and, even after he came to 
his majority, he was ruled by his ministers and his mistresses. He 
was not, like Louis XIV., the life and the centre of all great move- 
ments in his country. He was an automaton, a pageant ; not 
because the constitution imposed checks on his power, but because 
he was weak and vacillating. He, therefore, performing no great 
part in history, is only to be alluded to, and attention should be 
mainly directed to his ministers. 

During the minority of the king, the reins of government were 
held by the Duke of Orleans, as regent, and who, in case of the 
king's death, would be the next king, being grand-nephew of Louis 
XIV. The administration of the Duke of Orleans is nearly con 
temporaneous with that of Sir Robert Walpole. The most press- 
ing subject which demanded the attention of the regent, was that 
of the finances. The late king had left a debt of one thousand 
millions of livres — an enormous sum in that age. To get rid of 
this burden, the Duke of St. Simon proposed a bankruptcy. 
" This," said he, " would fall chiefly on the commercial and mon- 
eyed classes, who were not to be feared or pitied ; and would, 
moreover, be not only a relief to the state, but a salutary warning 
to the ignoble classes not to lend their money." This speech illus- 
trates the feelings and opinions of the aristocratic class in France, 
at that time. But the minister of finance would not run the risk 
of incurring the popular odium which such a measure would have 
produced, and he proposed calling together the States General. 
The regent duke, however, would not hear of that measure, and 
yet did not feel inclined to follow fully the advice of St. Simon. 
He therefore compromised the matter, and resolved to rob the 



CHAP. XXII.] JOHN LAW. 361 

national creditor. He established a commission to verify the bills 
of the public creditors, and, if their accounts did not prove satis- 1 
factory, to cancel them entirely. Three hundred and fifty millions 
of livres — equal, probably, to three hundred millions of dollars in 
this age — were thus swept away. But it was resolved not only 
to refuse to pay just debts, but to make people repay the gains 
which they had made. Those who had loaned money to the state, 
or had farmed the revenues, were flung into prison, and threatened 
with confiscation of their goods, and even death, — treated as Jews 
were treated in the Dark Ages, — unless they redeemed themselves 
by purchasing a pardon. Never before did men suffer such a 
penalty for having befriended an embarrassed state. To this 
injustice and cruelty the magistracy winked. But, in addition to 
this, the coin was debased to such an extent, that seventy-two mil- 
lions of livres were thus added to the treasury. Yet even these 
gains were not enough to satisfy a profligate government. There 
still continued a constant pressure. The national debt had increased 
even to fifteen hundred millions of livres, or seventy millions ster- 
ling — equivalent to what would now be equal to at least one thou- 
sand millions of dollars. 

To get rid of this debt, the regent listened to the schemes of the 
celebrated John Law, a Scotch adventurer and financier, who had 
established a bank, had grown rich, and was reputed to be a won- 
derful political economist. 

Law proposed, in substance, to increase the paper currency of 
the country, and thus supersede the necessity for the use of the 
precious metals. 

The regent, moreover, having great faith in Law's abilities, and 
in his wealth, converted his private bank into a royal one — made 
it, in short, the Bank of France. This bank was then allied with 
the two great commercial companies of the time — the East India 
and the Mississippi. Great privileges were bestowed on each. 
The latter had the exclusive monopoly of the trade with Louisiana, 
and all the countries on the Mississippi River, and also of the fur 
trade in Canada. Louisiana was then supposed to be rich in gold 
mines, and great delusions arose from the popular notion. 

The capital of this gigantic corporation was fixed at one hundred 
millions ; and Law, who was made director-general, aimed to make 
31 



362 MISSISSIPPI COMPANY. [CHAP. XXII. 



4 



the notes of the company preferable to specie, which, however, 
could lawfully be demanded for the notes. So it was settled that 
the shares of the company could only be purchased by the paper 
of the bank. As extravagant hopes of gain were cherished 
respecting the company, its shares were in great demand. And, 
as only Law's bank bills could purchase the shares, the gold and 
silver of the realm flowed into Law's bank. Law and the regent 
had, therefore, the fabrication of both shares and bank bills to an 
indefinite amount. 

The national creditor was also paid in the notes of the bank ; 
and, as unbounded confidence existed, both in the genius of Law 
and in the profits of the Mississippi Company, — as the shares were 
constantly in demand, and were rising in value, — the creditor was 
satisfied. In a short time, one half of the national debt was trans- 
ferred. Government owed the bank, and not the individuals and 
corporations from whom loans had been originally obtained. These 
individuals, instead of government scrip, had shares in the Missis- 
sippi Company. 

And all would have been well, had the company's shares been 
valuable, or had they retained their credit, or even had but a small 
part of the national debt been transferred. But the people did not 
know the real issues of the bank, and so long as new shares could 
be created and sold to pay the interest, the company's credit was 
good. For a while the delusion lasted. Law was regarded as a 
great national benefactor. His house was thronged with dukes 
and princes. He became controller- general of the finances — 
virtually prime minister. His fame extended far and wide. Hon- 
ors were showered upon him from every quarter. He was elected 
a member of the French Academy. His schemes seemed to rain 
upon Paris a golden shower. He had freed the state from embar- 
rassments, and he had, apparently, made every body rich, and no 
one poor. He was a deity, as beneficent as he was powerful. He 
became himself the richest man in Europe. Every body was 
intoxicated. The golden age had come. Paris was crowded with 
strangers from all parts of the world. Five hundred thousand 
strangers expended their fortunes, in hope of making greater ones. 
Twelve hundred new coaches were set up in the city. Lodgings 
could scarcely be had for money. The highest price was paid fo 



CHAP. XXII.] POPULAR DELUSION. 363 

provisions. Widow ladies, clergymen, and noblemen deserted 
London to speculate in stocks at Paris. Nothing was seen but 
new equipages, new houses, new apparel, new furniture. Nothing 
was felt but universal exhilaration. Every man seemed to have 
made his fortune. The stocks rose every day. The higher they 
rose, the more new stock was created. At last, the shares of the 
company rose from one hundred to twelve hundred per cent., and 
three hundred millions were created, which were worth, in 1719„ 
three thousand six hundred millions of livres — one hundred and 
eighty times the amount of all the gold and silver in Europe at 
that time. 

In this public delusion, the directors were wise enough to con- 
vert their shares into silver and gold. A great part of the current 
coin in the kingdom was locked up in the houses or banks of a 
few stockjobbers and speculators. 

But the scarcity of gold and silver was felt, people's eyes were 
opened, and the bubble burst, but not until half of the national 
debt had been paid off by this swindling transaction. 

The nation was furious. A panic spread among all classes ; 
the bank had no money with which to redeem its notes \ the 
shares fell almost to nothing ; and universal bankruptcy took place. 
Those who, a few days before, fancied themselves rich, now 
found themselves poor. Property of all kinds fell to less than its 
original value. Houses, horses, carriages, upholstery, every thing, 
declined in price. All were sellers, and few were purchasers. 

But popular execration and vengeance pursued the financier 
who had deceived the nation. He was forced to fly from Paris. 
His whole property was confiscated, and he was reduced to indi- 
gence and contempt. When his scheme was first suggested to the 
regent, he was worth three millions of livres. He had better 
remained a private banker. 

The bursting of the Mississippi bubble, of course, inflamed the 
nation against the government, and the Duke of Orleans was exe- 
crated, for his agency in the business had all the appearance of a 
fraud. But he was probably deluded with others, and hoped to 
free the country from its burdens. The great blunder was in the 
over-issue of notes when there was no money to redeem them. 

Nor could any management have prevented the catastrophe. 



364 FATAL EFFECTS OF THE DELUSION. [cHAP. XXII. 



4 



" It was not possible that the shares of the company should advance 
so greatly, and the public not perceive that they had advanced 
beyond their value ; it was not possible, that, while paper money 
so vastly increased in quantity, the numerical prices of all other 
things should not increase also, and that foreigners who sold their 
manufactures to the French should not turn their paper into gold, 
and carry it out of the kingdom ; it was not possible that the dis- 
appearance of the coin should not create alarm, notwithstanding 
the edicts of the regent, and the reasonings of Law ; it was not 
possible that annuitants should not discover that their old incomes 
were now insufficient and less valuable, as the medium in which 
they were paid was less valuable ; it was not possible that the small 
part of society which may be called the sober and reasoning part, 
should not be so struck with the sudden fortunes and extravagant 
enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt of the solidity of a 
system, unphilosophical in itself, and which, after all, had to depend 
on the profits of a commercial company, the good faith of the 
regent, and the skill of Law ; it was impossible, on these and other 
accounts, but that gold and silver should be at last preferred to 
paper notes, of whatever description or promise. These were 
inevitable consequences. Hence the failure of the scheme of 
Law, and the ruin of all who embarked in it, owing to a change 
in public opinion as to the probable success of the scheme, and, 
secondly, the over-issue of money." 

By this great folly, four hundred thousand families were ruined, 
or greatly reduced; but the government got rid of about eight 
hundred millions of debts. The sufferings of the people, with 
such a government, did not, however, create great solicitude ; the 
same old course of folly and extravagance was pursued by the 
court. 

Nor was there a change for the better when Louis XV. attained 
his majority. His vices and follies exceeded all that had ever 
been displayed before. The support of his mistresses alone was 
enough to embarrass the nation. Their waste and extravagance 
almost exceeded belief. Who has not heard of the disgraceful 
and disgusting iniquities of Pompadour and Du Bariy ? 

The regency of the Duke of Orleans occupied the first eight 
years of the reign of Louis XV. The prime minister of the regent 



CHAP. XXII.] ADMINISTRATION OF CARDINAL FLEURY. 365 

was Dubois, at first his tutor, and afterwards Archbishop of Cam- 
bray. He was rewarded with a cardinal's hat for the service he 
rendered to the Jesuits in their quarrel with the Jansenists, but was 
a man of unprincipled character ; a fit minister to a prince who 
pretended to be too intellectual to worship God, and who copied 
Henry IV. only in his licentiousness. 

The first minister of Louis XV., after he assumed himself the 
reins of government, was the Duke of Bourbon, lineal heir of the 
house of Conde, and first prince of the blood. But he was a man 
of no character, and his short administration was signalized by no 
important event. 

Cardinal Fleury succeeded the Duke of Bourbon as prime min- 
ister. He had been preceptor of the king, and was superior to all 
the intrigues of the court ; a man of great timidity, but also a man 
of great probity, gentleness, and benignity. Fortunately, he was 
intrusted with power at a period of great domestic tranquillity, and 
his administration was, like that of Walpole, pacific. He project- 
ed, however, no schemes of useful reform, and made no improve- 
ments in laws or finance. But he ruled despotically, and with 
good intentions, from 1726 to 1743. 

The most considerable subject of interest connected with his 
peaceful administration, was the quarrel between the Jesuits and 
the Jansenists. Fleury took the side of the former, although he 
was never an active partisan .; and he was induced to support the 
Jesuits for the sake of securing the cardinal's hat — the highest 
honor, next to that of the tiara, which, could be conferred on an 
ecclesiastic. The Jesuits upheld the crumbling power of the popes, 
and the popes rewarded the advocates of that body of men, who 
were their ablest supporters. 

The Jansenist controversy is too important to be passed over 
with a mere allusion. It was the great event in the history of 
Catholic Europe during the eighteenth century. It involved prin- 
ciples of great theological, and even political interest. 

The Jansenist controversy grew out of the long-disputed ques- 
tions pertaining to grace and free will — questions which were 
agitated with great spirit and acrimony in the seventeenth century, 
as they had previously been centuries before by Augustine and 
Pelagius. The Jesuits had never agreed with the great oracle of 
31* 



366 CORNELIUS JANSEN. [CHAP. XXII. 

4 

the Western church in his views on certain points, and it was their 
aim to show the absolute freedom of the human will — that it had 
a self-determining power, a perfect liberty to act or not to act. 
Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, had been a great defender of this ancient 
Pelagianism, and his views were opposed by the Dominicans, 
and the controversy was carried into all the universities of Europe. 
The Council of Trent was too wise to meddle with this difficult 
question ; but angry theologians would not let it rest, and it was 
discussed with peculiar fervor in the Catholic University of Lou- 
vaine. Among the doctors who there distinguished themselves in 
reviving the great contest of the fifth and sixth centuries, were 
Cornelius Jansen of Holland, and Jean de Verger of Gascony. 
Both these doctors hated the Jesuits, and lamented the danger- 
ous doctrines which they defended, and advocated the views of 
Augustine and the Calvinists. Jansen became professor of divinity 
in the university, and then Bishop of Ypres. After an uninter- 
rupted study of twenty years, he produced his celebrated book, 
called Augustinus, in which he set forth the servitude of the will, 
and the necessity of divine grace to break the bondage, which, 
however, he maintained, like Calvin, is imparted only to a few, 
and in pursuance of a decree existing in the divine mind before 
the creation of our species. But Jansen died before the book was 
finished, and two years elapsed before it was published, but, when 
published, it was the signal for a contest which distracted Europe 
for seventy years. 

While Jansen was preparing this work, his early companion and 
friend, De Verger, a man of family and rank, had become abbot 
of the monastery of St. Cyran in Paris, and had formed, in the 
centre of that gay city, a learned and ascetic hermitage. This 
was during the reign of Louis XIII. His reputation, as a scholar 
and a saint, attracted the attention of Bichelieu, and his services 
were solicited by that able minister. But neither rewards, nor 
flatteries, nor applause had power over the mind of St. Cyran, 
as he was now called. The cardinal hated and feared a man 
whom he could not bribe or win, and soon found means to quarrel 
with him, and sent him to the gloomy fortress of Vincennes. But 
there, in his prison, he devoted himself, with renewed ardor, to his 
studies and duties, subduing his appetites and passions by an ascet- 



CHAP. XXII.] ST. CYRAN ARNAULD LE MAITRE. 367 

icism which even his church did not require, and devoting all his 
thoughts and words to the service of God. Like Calvin and 
Augustine, he had so profound a conception of the necessity of an 
inward change, that he made grace precede repentance. A man 
so serene in trial, so humble in spirit, so natural and childlike in 
ordinary life, and yet so distinguished for talents and erudition, 
could not help exciting admiration, and making illustrious prose- 
lytes. Among them was Arnauld D'Antilly, the intimate friend 
of Richelieu and Anne of Austria; Le Maitre, the most eloquent 
lawyer and advocate in France ; and Angelique Arnauld, the 
abbess of Port Royal. This last was one of the most distinguished 
ladies of her age, noble by birth, and still more noble by her beau- 
tiful qualities of mind and heart. She had been made abbess of 
her Cistercian convent at the age of eleven years, and at that 
time was gay, social, and light-hearted. The preaching of a 
Capuchin friar had turned her thoughts to the future world, and 
she closed the gates of her beautiful abbey, in the vale of Chev- 
reuse, against all strangers, and devoted herself to the ascetic 
duties which her church and age accounted most meritorious. She 
soon after made the acquaintance of St. Cyran, and he imbued 
her mind with the principles of the Augustinian theology. When 
imprisoned at Vincennes, he was still the spiritual father of Port 
Royal. Amid this famous retreat were collected the greatest 
scholars and the greatest saints of the seventeenth century — 
Antoine Le Maitre, De Lericourt, Le Maitre de Saci, Antoine 
Arnauld, and Pascal himself. Le Maitre de Saci gave to the 
world the best translation of the Bible in French ; Arnauld wrote 
one hundred volumes of controversy, and, among them, a noted 
satire on the Jesuits, which did them infinite harm ; while Pascal, 
besides his wonderful mathematical attainments, and his various 
meditative works, is immortalized for his Provincial Letters, writ- 
ten in the purest French, and with matchless power and beauty. 
This work, directed against the Jesuits, is an inimitable model of 
elegant irony, and the most effective sarcasm probably ever elab- 
orated by man. In the vale of Port Royal also dwelt Tillemont, 
the great ecclesiastical historian ; Fontaine and Racine, who were 
controlled by the spirit of Arnauld, as well as the Prince of Conti, 
and the Duke of Liancourt. There resided, under the name of 



368 THE LABORS OF THE PORT ROYALISTS. [CHAP. XXII. 



*, 



Le Merrier, and in the humble occupation of a gardener, one of 
the proudest nobles of the French court ; and there, too, dwelt the 
celebrated Duchess of Longueville, sister of the Prince of Conde, 
the life of the Fronde, the idol of the Parisian mob, and the once 
gay patroness of the proudest festivities. 

But it is the labors of these saints, scholars, and nobles to 
repress the dangerous influence of the Jesuits for which they were 
most distinguished. The Jansenists of Port Royal did not deny the 
authority of the pope, nor the great institutions of the papacy. 
They sought chiefly, in their controversy with the Jesuits, to 
enforce the doctrines of Augustine respecting justification. But 
their efforts were not agreeable to the popes, nor to the doctors of 
the Sorbonne, who had no sympathy with their religious life, and 
detested their bold spirit of inquiry. The doctors of the Sorbonne, 
accordingly, extracted from the book of Jansen five propositions 
which they deemed heretical, and urged the pope to condemn 
them. The Port Royalists admitted that these five propositions 
were indefensible if they were declared heretical by the sovereign 
pontiff, but denied that they were actually to be found in the book 
of Jansen. They did not quarrel with the pope on grounds of 
faith. They recognized his infallibility in matters of religion, but 
not in matters of fact. The pope, not wishing to push things to 
extremity, which never was the policy of Rome, pretended to be 
satisfied. But the Jesuits would not let him rest, and insisted 
on the condemnation of the Jansenist opinions. The case was 
brought before a great council of French bishops and doctors, and 
Arnauld, the great champion of the Jansenists, was voted guilty 
of heresy for denying that the five propositions which the pope 
condemned were actually in the book of Jansen. The pope, 
moreover, was induced to issue a formula of an oath, to which all 
who wished to enjoy any office in the church were obliged to 
subscribe, and which affirmed that the five condemned propositions 
were actually to be found in Jansen's book. This act of the pope 
was justly regarded by the Jansenists as intolerably despotic, and 
many of the most respectable of the French clergy sided with 
them in opinion. All France now became interested in the con- 
troversy, and it soon led to great commotions. The Jansenists 
then contended that the pope might err in questions of fact, and 



CHAP. XXII.] PRINCIPLES OF JANSENISM. 369 

that, therefore, they were not under an obligation to subscribe to 
the required oath. The Jesuits, on the other hand, maintained 
the pope's infallibility in matters of fact, as well as in doctrine ; 
and, as they had the most powerful adherents, the Jansenists Were 
bitterly persecuted. But, as twenty-two bishops were found to 
take their side, the matter was hushed up for a while. For ten 
years more, the Port Royalists had peace and protection, chiefly 
through the great influence of the Duchess of Longueville ; but, 
on her death, persecution returned. Arnauld was obliged to fly 
to the Netherlands, and the beautiful abbey of Port Royal was 
despoiled of its lands and privileges. Louis XIV. had ever hated 
its inmates, being ruled by Madame de Maintenon, who, in turn, 
was a tool of the Jesuits, 

But the demolition of the abbey, the spoliation of its lands, 
and the dispersion of those who sought its retreat, did not stop the 
controversy. Pascal continued it^ and wrote his Provincial Letters, 
which had a wonderful effect in making the Jesuits both ridiculous 
and hateful. That book was the severest blow this body of am- 
bitious and artful casuists ever received. 

Nor was the Jansenist controversy merely a discussion of grace 
and free will. The principles of Jansenism, when carried out, 
tended to secure independence to the national church, and to free 
the consciences of men from the horrible power of their spiritual 
confessors. Jansenism was a timid protest against spiritual tyr- 
anny, a mild land of Puritanism, which found sympathy with 
many people in France. The Parliament of Paris caught the 
spirit of freedom, and protected the Jansenists and those who 
sympathized with them. It so happened that a certain bishop 
published a charge to his clergy which was strongly imbued with 
the independent doctrines of the Jansenists. He was tried and 
condemned by a provincial council, and banished by the govern- 
ment. The Parliament of Paris, as the guardian of the law, took 
up the quarrel, and Cardinal Fleury was obliged to resort to a Bed 
of Justice in order to secure the registry of a decree. A Bed of 
Justice was the personal appearance of the sovereign in the 
supreme judicial tribunal of the nation, and his command to the 
members of it to obey his injunctions was the last resort of abso- 
lute power. The parliament, of course, obeyed, but protested the 



370 FUNCTIONS OF THE PARLIAMENT. [CHAP. XXII. 

4 

next day, and drew up resolutions which declared the temporal 
power to be independent of the spiritual. It then proceeded to 
Meudon, one of the royal palaces, to lay its remonstrance before 
the king ; and Louis XV., indignant and astonished, refused to see 
the members. The original controversy was forgotten, and the 
cause of the parliament, which was the cause of liberty, became 
the cause of the nation. The resistance of the parliament was 
technically unsuccessful, yet, nevertheless, sowed the seeds of 
popular discontent, and contributed to that great insurrection 
which finally overturned the throne. 

It may be asked how the Parliament of Paris became a judicial 
tribunal, rather than a legislative assembly, as in England. When 
the Justinian code was introduced into French jurisprudence, in 
the latter part of the Middle Ages, the old feudal and clerical 
judges — the barons and bishops — were incapable of expounding 
it, and a new class of men arose — the lawyers, whose exclusive 
business it was to study the laws. Being best acquainted with 
them, they entered upon the functions of judges, and the secular 
and clerical lords yielded to their opinions. The great barons, 
however, still continued to sit in the judicial tribunals, although 
ignorant of the new jurisprudence ; and their decisions were 
directed by the opinions of the lawyers who had obtained a seat 
in their body, as is the case at present in the English House of 
Lords when it sits as a judicial body. The necessity of providing 
some permanent repository for the royal edicts, induced the kings 
of France to enroll them in the journals of the courts of parlia- 
ment, being the highest judicial tribunal ; and the members of these 
courts gradually availed themselves of this custom to dispute the 
legality of any edict which had not been thus registered. As 
the influence of the States General declined, the power of the 
parliament increased. The encroachments of the papacy first 
engaged its attention, and then the management of the finances by 
the ministers of Francis I. called forth remonstrances. During 
the war of the Fronde, the parliament absolutely refused to regis- 
ter the royal decrees. But Louis XIV. was sufficiently powerful 
to suppress the spirit of independence, and accordingly entered 
the court, during the first years of his reign, with a whip in his 
hand, and compelled it to register his edicts. Nor did any 



3 

CHAP. XXII.] THE BULL UNIGENITUS. ^71 

murmur afterwards escape the body, until, at the close of his reign, 
the members opposed the bull Unigenitus — that which con- 
demned the Jansenists — as an infringement of the liberties of the 
Gallican Church. And no sooner had the great monarch died, 
than, contrary to his will, they vested the regency in the hands of 
the Duke of Orleans. Then freedom of expostulation respecting 
the ruinous schemes of Law induced him to banish them, and 
they only obtained their recall by degrading concessions. Their 
next opposition was during the administration of Fleury. The 
minister of finance made an attempt to inquire into the wealth of 
the clergy, which raised the jealousy of the order ; and the clergy, 
in order to divert the attention of the court, revived the opposition 
of the parliament to the bull Unigenitus. It was resolved by 
the clergy to demand confessional notes from dying persons, and 
that these notes should be signed by priests adhering to the bull, 
before extreme unction should be given. The Archbishop of 
Paris, at the head of the French clergy, was opposed by the par- 
liament, and this high judicial court imprisoned such of the clergy 
as refused to administer the sacraments. The king, under the 
guidance of Fleury, forbade the parliament to take cognizance of 
ecclesiastical proceedings, and to suspend its prosecutions. In- 
stead of acquiescing, the parliament presented new remonstrances, 
and the members refused to attend to any other functions, and 
resolved that they could not obey this injunction without violating 
their consciences. They cited the Bishop of Orleans before their 
tribunal, and ordered all his writings, which denied the jurisdiction 
of the court, to be publicly burnt by the executioner. By aid 
of the military, the parliament enforced the administration of the 
sacraments, and became so interested in the controversy as to 
neglect other official duties. The king, indignant, again banished 
the members, with the exception of four, whom he imprisoned. 
And, in order not to impede the administration of justice, the king 
established another tribunal for the prosecution of civil suits. But 
the lawyers, sympathizing with the parliament, refused to plead 
before the new court. This resolute conduct, and other evils 
happening at the time, induced the king to yield, in order to con- 
ciliate the people, and the parliament was recalled. This was 
a popular triumph, and the archbishop was banished in his turn. 



372 MADAME DE POMPADOUR. [CHAP. XXII. 

4 

Shortly after, Cardinal Fleury died, and a new policy was adopted. 
The quarrel of the parliament and the clergy was forgotten in a 
still greater quarrel between the king and the Jesuits. 

The policy of Fleury, like that of Walpole, was pacific ; and 
yet, like him, he was forced into a war against his own convictions. 
And success attended the arms of France, in the colonial struggle 
with England, until Pitt took the helm of state. 

Until the death of Fleury, in 1743, who administered affairs 
with wisdom, moderation, and incorruptible integrity, he was be- 
loved, if he was not venerated. But after this event, a great 
change took place in his character and measures, and the reign 
of mistresses commenced, and to an extent unparalleled in the 
history of Europe. Louis XIV. bestowed the revenue of the state 
on unworthy favorites, yet never allowed them to govern the 
nation ; but Louis XV. intrusted the most important state matters 
to their direction, and the profoundest state secrets to their 
keeping. 

Among these mistresses, Madame de Pompadour was the most 
noted ; a woman of talent, but abominably unprincipled. Ambi- 
tion was her master-passion, and her boudoir was the council cham- 
ber of the royal ministers. Most of the great men of France 
paid court to her, and to neglect her was social ruin. Even Vol- 
taire praised her beauty, and Montesquieu flattered her intellect. 
And her extravagance was equal to her audacity. She insisted on 
drawing bills on the treasury without specifying the service. The 
comptroller-general was in despair, and the state was involved in 
inextricable embarrassments. 

It was through her influence that the Duke de Choiseul was 
made the successor of Fleury. He was not deficient in talent ; 
but his administration proved unfortunate. Under his rule, Louis 
lost the Canadas, and France plunged into a contest with Frederic 
the Great. The Seven Years' War, which occurred during his 
administration, had made the age an epoch ; but as this is to be 
considered in the chapter on Frederic III., no notice of it will 
be taken in this connection. 

The most memorable event which arose out of the policy and 
conduct of Choiseul was the fall of the Jesuits. 

Their arts and influence had obtained from the pope the bull 



CHAP. XXII.] THE JESUITS. 373 

Unigenitus, designed to suppress their enemies, the Jansenists ; 
and the king, governed by Fleury, had taken their side. 

But they were so unwise as to quarrel with the powerful mistress 
of Louis XV. They despised her, and defied her hatred. Indeed, 
the Jesuits had climbed to so great a height that they were scornful 
of popular clamor, and even of regal distrust. But there is no 
man, and no body of men, who can venture to provoke enmity 
with impunity ; and destruction often comes from a source the 
least suspected, and apparently the least to be feared. Who could 
have supposed that the ruin of this powerful body, which had 
reigned so proudly in Christendom for a century; which had 
imposed its Briareus's arms on the necks of princes ; which had 
its confessors in the courts of the most absolute monarchs ; which, 
with its hundred eyes, had penetrated the secrets of all the cab- 
inets of Europe ; and which had succeeded in suppressing in so 
many places every insurrection of human intelligence, in spite of 
the fears of kings, the jealousy of the other monastic orders, and 
the inveterate animosity of philosophers and statesmen, — would 
receive a fatal wound from the hands of a woman, who scandal- 
ized by her vices even the depraved court of an enervated prince ? 
But so it was. Madame de Pompadour hated the Jesuits because 
they attempted to undermine her influence with the king. And 
she incited the prime minister, whom she had raised by her arts 
to power, to unite with Pombal in Portugal, in order to effect their 
ruin. 

In no country was the power of the Jesuits more irresistible 
than in Portugal. There their ascendency was complete. But 
the prime minister of Joseph I., the Marquis of Pombal, a man 
of great energy, had been insulted by a lady of the highest rank, 
and he swore revenge. An opportunity was soon afforded. The 
king happened to be fired at and wounded in his palace by some 
unknown enemy. The blow was aimed at the objects of the minis- 
ter's vengeance — the Marchioness of Tavora, her husband, her 
family, and her friends the Jesuits. And royal vengeance fol- 
lowed, not merely on an illustrious family, but on those persons 
whom this family befriended. The Jesuits were expelled in the 
most summary manner from the kingdom. The Duke de Choiseul 
and Madame Pompadour hailed their misfortunes with delight, and 
32 



374 EXPOSURE OF THE JESUITS. [CHAP. XXII. 

4 

watched their opportunity for revenge. This was afforded by the 
failure of La Valette, the head of the Jesuits at Martinique. It 
must be borne in mind that the Jesuits had embarked in commer- 
cial enterprises, while they were officiating as missionaries. La 
Valette aimed to monopolize, for his order, the trade with the 
West Indies, which commercial ambition excited the jealousy of 
mercantile classes in France, and they threw difficulties in his 
way. And it so happened that some of his most valuable ships 
were taken and plundered by the English cruisers, which calamity, 
happening at a time of embarrassment, caused his bills to be pro- 
tested, and his bankers to stop payment. They, indignant, accused 
the Jesuits, as a body, of peculation and fraud, and demanded 
repayment from the order. Had the Jesuits been wise, they 
would have satisfied the ruined bankers. But who is wise on the 
brink of destruction ? " Quern deus vult perdere,prius dementat.' 1 '' 
The Jesuits refused to sacrifice La Valette to the interests of their 
order, which course would have been in accordance with their 
general policy. The matter was carried before the Parliament of 
Paris, and the whole nation was interested in its result. It was 
decided by this supreme judicial tribunal, that the Jesuits were 
responsible for the debts of La Valette. But the commercial 
injury was weak in comparison with the moral. In the course of 
legal proceedings, the books and rule of the Jesuits were demand- 
ed — that mysterious rule which had never been exposed to the 
public eye, and which had been so carefully guarded. When this 
rule was produced, all minor questions vanished ; mistresses, 
bankruptcies, politics, finances, wars, — all became insignificant, 
compared with those questions which affected the position and 
welfare of the society. Pascal became a popular idol, and " Tar- 
tuffe grew pale before Escobar." The reports of the trial lay on 
every toilet table, and persons of both sexes, and of all ages 
and conditions, read with avidity the writings of the casuists. 
Nothing was talked about but " probability," " surrender of con- 
science," and " mental reservations." Philosophers grew jealous 
of the absorbing interest with which every thing pertaining to the 
regime of the Jesuits was read, and of the growing popularity of 
the Jansenists, who had exposed it. " What," said Voltaire, " will 
it profit us to be delivered from the foxes, if we are to be given 



CHAP. XXII.] THEIR EXPULSION FROM FRANCE. 375 

up to the wolves ? " But the philosopher had been among the first 
to raise the cry of alarm against the Jesuits, and it was no easy 
thing to allay the storm. 

The Jesuits, in their distress, had only one friend sufficiently 
powerful to protect them, and he was the king. He had been 
their best friend, and he still wished to come to their rescue. He 
had been taught to honor them, and he had learned to fear them. 
He stood in fear of assassination, and dreaded a rupture with so 
powerful and unscrupulous a body. And his resistance to the 
prosecution would have been insurmountable, had it not been for 
the capriciousness of his temper, which more than balanced his 
superstitious fears. His minister and his mistress circumvented 
him. They represented that, as the parliament and the nation 
were both aroused against the Jesuits, his resistance would neces- 
sarily provoke a new Fronde. Nothing he dreaded so much as 
civil war. The wavering monarch, placed in the painful necessity 
of choosing, as he supposed, between a war and the ruin of his 
best friends, yielded to the solicitations of his artful advisers. But 
he yielded with a moderation winch did him honor. He would 
not consent to the expulsion of the Jesuits until efforts had been 
made to secure their reform. He accordingly caused letters to be 
written to Rome, demanding an immediate attention to the subject. 
Choiseul himself prepared the scheme of reformation. But the 
Jesuits would not hear of any retrenchment of their power or 
privileges. " Let us remain as we are, or let us exist no longer," 
was their reply. The parliament, the people, the minister, and 
the mistress renewed their clamors. The parliament decreed that 
the constitution of the society was an encroachment on the royal 
authority, and the king was obliged to yield. The members of 
the society were ' forbidden to wear the habit of the society, or to 
enjoy any clerical office or dignity. Their colleges- were closed, 
their order was dissolved, and they were expelled from the king- 
dom with rigor and severity, in spite of the wishes of the king, 
and many entreaties and tears from the zealous advocates of 
Catholicism, and even of religious education. 

But the Jesuits were too powerful, even in their misfortunes, to 
be persecuted without the effort to annihilate them. Having 
secured their expulsion from France and Portugal, Choiseul and 



376 SUPPRESSION IN SPAIN. [CHAP. XXII. 



.4 



Pombal turned their attention to Spain, and so successfully in- 
trigued, so artfully wrought on the jealousy and fears of Charles 
III., that this weak prince followed the example of Joseph I. and 
Louis XV. But the king and his minister D'Aranda, however, 
prosecuted their investigations with the utmost secrecy — did not 
even tell their allies of their movements. Of course, the Jesuits 
feared nothing from the king of Spain. But when his measures 
were completed, an edict was suddenly declared, decreeing the 
suppression of the order in the land of Inquisitions. The decree 
came like a thunderbolt, but was instantly executed. " On the 
same day, 2d April, 1767, and at the same hour, in Spain, in 
Africa, in Asia, in America^ and in all the islands belonging to the 
Spanish monarchy, the alcaldes of the towns opened their de- 
spatches from Madrid, by which they were ordered, on pain of the 
severest penalties, immediately to enter the establishments of the 
Jesuits, to seize their persons, expel them from their convents, 
and transport them, within twenty-four hours, to such places as 
were designated. Nor were the Jesuits permitted to carry away 
their money or their papers. Only a purse, a breviary, and some 
apparel were given them." 

The government feared a popular insurrection from an excite- 
ment so sudden, and a persecution so dreadful, and therefore 
issued express prohibition to all the ecclesiastical authorities to pre- 
vent any allusion to the event from the pulpit. All classes were 
required to maintain absolute silence, and any controversy, or 
criticism, or remark was regarded as high treason. Such is des- 
potism. Such is religious persecution, when fear, as well as hatred, 
prompts to injustice and cruelty. 

The Jesuits, in their misfortunes, managed with consummate 
craft. Their policy was to appear in the light of victims of per- 
secution. There was to them no medium between reigning as 
despots or dying as martyrs. Mediocrity would have degraded 
them. Bicci, the general of the order, would not permit them to 
land in Italy, to which country they were sent by the king of Spain. 
Six thousand priests, in misery and poverty, were sent adrift upon 
the Mediterranean, and after six months of vicissitude, suffering, 
and despair, they found a miserable refuge on the Island of Corsica. 

Soon after, the pope, their most powerful protector, died. A 



CHAP. XXII.] POPE CLEMENT XIV. 377 

successor was to be appointed. But France, Spain, and Portugal, 
bent on the complete suppression of the Jesuits, resolved that no 
pope should be elected who would not favor their end. A cardinal 
was found, — Ganganelli, — who promised the ambassadors that, 
if elected pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, 
intrigued to secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every 
nerve, and put forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope 
who would protect them. But the ambassadors of the allied powers 
overreached even the Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, 
apparently, the most unambitious of men. His father had been a 
peasant ; but, by the force of talent and learning, he had arisen, 
from the condition of his father, to be a Roman cardinal. Under 
the garb of a saint, he aspired to the tiara. There was only one 
condition of success ; and that was, to destroy the best supporters 
of that fearful absolutism which had so long enslaved the world. 
The sacrifice was tremendous ; but it was made, and he became a 
pope. Then commenced in his soul the awful struggle. Should 
he fulfil his pledge, and jeopardize his cause and throne, and be 
branded, by the zealots of his church, with- eternal infamy ? or 
should he break his word, and array against himself, with awful 
enmity, the great monarchs of Europe, and perhaps lose the alle- 
giance of their subjects to him as the supreme head of the Catho- 
lic Church ? The decision was the hardest which mortal man had 
ever been required to make. Whatever course he pursued was 
full of danger and disgrace. Poor Ganganelli ! he had better 
remained a cowherd, a simple priest, a bishop, a cardinal, — any 
thing, — rather than to have been made a pope! But such was 
his ambition, and he was obliged to reap its penalty. Long did 
the afflicted pontiff delay to fulfil his pledge ; long did he practise 
all the arts of dissimulation, of which he was such a master. He 
delayed, he nattered, he entreated, he coaxed. But the monarchs 
called peremptorily for the fulfilment of his pledge, and all Europe 
now understood the nature of the contest. It was between the 
Jesuits and the monarchs of Europe. Ganganelli was compelled 
to give his decision. His health declined, his spirits forsook him, 
his natural gayety fled. He courted solitude, he wept, he prayed. 
But he must, nevertheless, decide. The Jesuits threatened assas- 
sination, and exposed, with bitter eloquence, the ruin of his church, 
32* 



375 DEATH OF GA>~GA>"ELLI. [CHAP. XXII. 

4 

if he yielded her privileges to kings. And kings threatened 
secession from Rome, deposition — ten thousand calamities. His 
agony became insupportable ; but delay was no longer possible. 
He decided to suppress the order of the Jesuits ; and sixty-nine 
colleges were closed, their missions were broken up, their churches 
were given to their rivals, and twenty -two thousand priests were 
left without organization, wealth, or power. 

Their revenge was not an idle threat. One day, the pope, on 
arising from table, felt an internal shock, followed by great cold. 
Gradually he lost his voice and strength. His blood became cor- 
rupted ; and his moral system gave way with the physical. He 
knew that he was doomed — that he was poisoned — that he must 
die. The fear of hell was now added to his other torments. 
u Compulsus.feci, compuhus.feci ! " — " O, mercy, mercy, I have 
been compelled ! " he cried, and died — died by that slow but sure 
poison, such as old Alexander YI. knew so well how to administer 
to his victims when he sought their wealth. Pope Clement XIY. 
inflicted, it was supposed, a mortal wound upon his church and 
upon her best friends. He, indeed, reaped the penalty of ambition ; 
but the cause which he represented did not perish, nor will it lose 
vitality so long as the principle of evil on earth is destined to con- 
tend with the principle of good. On the restoration of the Bour- 
bons, the order of the Jesuits was restored; and their naming 
sword, with its double edge, was again felt in every corner of the 
world. 

The Jesuits, on their expulsion, found shelter in Prussia, and 
protection from the royal infidel who had been the friend of Vol- 
taire. A schism between the crowned heads of Europe and infi- 
del philosophers had taken place. Frederic, who had sympathized 
with their bitter mockery, at last perceived the tendency of their 
writings ; that men who assailed obedience to divine laws would 
not long respect the institutions and governments which mankind had 
recognized. He perceived, too, the natural union of absolutism 
in the church with absolutism in the state, and came to the rescue 
of the great, unchanged, unchangeable, and ever-consistent advo- 
cates of despotism. The frivolous Choiseul, the extravagant Pom- 
padour, and the debauched Sardanapalus of his age, did not perceive 
the truth which the King of Prussia recognized in his latter days. 



CHAP. XXII.] DEATH OF LOUIS XT. 379 

Nor would it have availed any thing, if they had been gifted with 
the clear insight of Frederic the Great. The stream, on whose 
curious banks the great and the noble of France had been amusing 
themselves, soon swelled into an overwhelming torrent. That de- 
vastating torrent was the French Revolution, whose awful swell 
was first perceived during the latter years of Louis XV. He him- 
self caught glimpses of the future ; but, with the egotism of a 
Bourbon, he remarked " that the throne would last during his 
time." Soon after this heartless speech was made, he was stricken 
with the small-pox, and died 1774, after a long and inglorious reign. 
He was deserted in his last hours, and his disgusting and loathsome 
remains were huddled into then last abode by the workmen of his 
palace. 

Before the reign of Louis XVI. can be described, it is necessary 
to glance at the career of Frederic the Great, and the condition 
of the various European states, at a period contemporary with the 
Seven Years' War — the great war of the eighteenth century, 
before the breaking out of the French Revolution. 



References. — For a general view of the reign of Louis XV., see the 
histories of Lacretelle, Voltaire, and Crowe. The scheme of Law is best 
explained in Smyth's Lectures, and Anderson's History of Commerce. 
The struggles between the king and the Parliament of Paris are tolerably 
described in the History of Adolphus. For a view of the Jansenist Con- 
troversy, see Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, Ranke's History of the 
Popes, Pascal's Provincial Letters, and Stephens's article in the Edinburgh 
Review, on the Port Royalists. The fall of the Jesuits has been admirably 
treated by Quinet. James has written a good sketch of the lives of Fleury 
and Choiseul. For the manners of the court of Louis XV., the numerous 
memoirs and letters, -which were written during the period, must be con- 
sulted ; the most amusing of which, and, in a certain sense, instructive, 
are too infamous to be named. 



380 FREDERIC WILLIAM. [CHAP. XXIIT. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

Frederic II. of Prussia has won a name which will be immor- 
tal on Moloch's catalogue of military heroes. His singular char- 
acter extorts our admiration, while it calls forth our aversion ; 
admiration for his great abilities, sagacity, and self-reliance, and 
disgust for his cruelties, his malice, his suspicions, and his tricks. 
He had no faith in virtue or disinterestedness, and trusted only to 
mechanical agencies — to the power of armies — to the principle 
of fear. He was not indifferent to literature, or the improvement 
of his nation ; but war was alike his absorbing passion and his 
highest glory. Peter the Great was half a barbarian, and Charles 
XII. half a madman ; but Frederic was neither barbarous in his 
tastes, nor wild in his schemes. Louis XIV. plunged his nation in 
war from puerile egotism, and William III. fought for the great 
cause of religious and civil liberty ; but Frederic, from the excite- 
ment which war produced, and the restless ambition of plundering 
what was not his own. 

He was born in the royal palace of Berlin, in 1712 — ten years 
after Prussia had become a kingdom, and in the lifetime of 
his grandfather, Frederic I. The fortunes of his family were 
made by his great-grandfather, called the Great Elector, of the 
house of Hohenzollern. He could not make Brandenburg a fertile 
province ; so he turned it into a military state. He was wise, be- 
nignant, and universally beloved. But few of his amiable quali- 
ties were inherited by his great-grandson. Frederic II. resembled 
more his whimsical and tyrannical father, Frederic William, who 
beat his children without a cause, and sent his subjects to prison 
from mere caprice. When his ambassador, in London, was allowed 
only one thousand pounds a year, he gave a bounty of thirteen 
hundred pounds to a tall Irishman, to join his famous body-guard, 
a regiment of men who were each over six feet high. He would 
kick women in the streets, abuse clergymen for looking on the 



CHAP. XXIII.] ACCESSION OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 381 

soldiers, and insult his son's tutor for teaching him Latin. But, 
abating his coarseness, his brutality, and his cruelty, he was a 
Christian, after a certain model. He had respect for the institu- 
tions of religion, denounced all amusements as sinful, and read a 
sermon aloud, every afternoon, to his family. His son perceived 
his inconsistencies, and grew up an infidel. There was no sym- 
pathy between father and son, and the father even hated the heir 
of his house and throne. The young prince was kept on bread 
and water ; his most moderate wishes were disregarded ; he was 
surrounded with spies ; he was cruelly beaten and imprisoned, and 
abused as a monster and a heathen. The cruel treatment which 
the prince received induced him to fly ; his flight was discovered ; 
he was brought back to Berlin, condemned to death as a deserter, 
and only saved from the fate of a malefactor by the intercession 
of half of the crowned heads of Europe. A hollow reconciliation 
was effected ; and the prince was permitted, at last, to retire to one 
of the royal palaces, where he amused himself with books, bil- 
liards, balls, and banquets. He opened a correspondence with 
Voltaire, and became an ardent admirer of his opinions. 

In 1740, the old king died, and Frederic II. mounted an abso- 
lute throne. He found a well filled treasury, and a splendidly 
disciplined army. His customary pleasures were abandoned, and 
dreams of glory filled his ambitious soul. 

Scarcely was he seated on his throne before military aggran- 
dizement became the animating principle of his life. 

His first war was the conquest of Silesia, one of the richest 
provinces of the Austrian empire. It belonged to Maria Theresa, 
Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, daughter of the late emperor of 
Germany, whose succession was guaranteed by virtue of the 
Pragmatic Sanction — a law which the Emperor Charles passed 
respecting his daughter's claim, and which claim was recognized 
by the old king of Prussia, and ratified by all the leading powers 
of Europe. Without a declaration of war, without complaints, 
without a cause, scarcely without a pretext, from the mere lust of 
dominion, Frederic commenced hostilities, in the depth of winter, 
when invasion was unexpected, and when the garrisons were 
defenceless. Without a battle, one of the oldest provinces of 
Austria was seized, and the royal robber returned in triumph to 
his capital. 



382 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. [CHAP. XXIII. 

4 

Such an outrage and crime astonished and alarmed the whole 
civilized world, and Europe armed itself to revenge and assist the 
unfortunate queen, whose empire was threatened with complete 
dismemberment. Frederic was alarmed, and a hollow peace was 
made. But, in two years, the war again broke out. To recover 
Silesia and to humble Frederic was the aim of Maria Theresa. 
She succeeded in securing the cooperation of Russia, France, 
Sweden, and Saxony. No one doubted of the ruin of the house 
of Brandenburg. Six hundred thousand men were arrayed to 
crush an upstart monarchy, and an unprincipled king, who had 
trampled on all the laws of nations and all the principles of justice. 

The resistance of Frederic to these immense forces constitutes 
the celebrated Seven Years' 1 War — the most gigantic war which 
Europe had seen, from the Reformation to the French Revolution. 
This contest began during the latter years of George II., and was 
connected with the colonial wars of Great Britain and France, 
during which Wolfe was killed and the Canadas were gained. 
This war called out all the energies of the elder Pitt, and placed 
Great Britain on the exalted height which it has since retained. 

Frederic was not so blinded as not to perceive the extent of his 
dangers ; and his successful resistance to the armies which his 
own offensive war had raised up against him, has given him his 
claims to the epithet of Great. Although he provoked the war, 
his successful defence of his country placed him on the very high- 
est pinnacle of military fame. He would gladly have been 
relieved from the contest ; but it was inevitable ; and when the 
tempest burst upon his head, he showed all the qualities of exalted 
heroism. 

, Great and overwhelming odds were arrayed against him. But 
he himself had some great advantages. He was absolute master 
of his army, of his treasury, and of his territories. The lives and 
property of his subjects were at his disposal ; his subjects were 
brave and loyal ; he was popular with the people, and was sustained 
by the enthusiasm of the nation ; his army was well disciplined ; 
he had no sea-coast to defend, and he could concentrate all his 
forces upon any point he pleased, in a short time. 

His only hope was in energetic measures. He therefore invaded 
Saxony, at once, with sixty thousand men. His aim was to seize 



CHAP. XXIII.] BATTLE OF EOSSBACH. 383 

the state papers at Dresden, which contained the proofs of the 
confederation. These were found and published, which showed 
that now, at least, he acted on the defensive. 

The campaign of 1756 commenced, and the first great battle 
was won by the Prussians. By the victory of Lowisitz, Frederic 
was in a better condition to contend with Austria. By this he got 
possession of Saxony. 

The campaign of 1757 was commenced under great solicitude. 
Five hundred thousand men were arrayed against two hundred 
thousand. Near Prague, Frederic obtained a victory, but lost 
twelve thousand men. He then invested Prague. General Daun, 
with a superior army, advanced to its relief. Another bloody battie 
was fought, and lost by the Prussian king. This seemed to be a 
fatal stroke. At the outset, as it were, of the war, he had received 
a check. The soldiers' confidence was weakened. Malevolent 
sarcasm pointed out mistakes. The siege of Prague was raised, 
and Bohemia was abandoned. A French army, at the same time, 
invaded Germany ; and Frederic heard also of the death of his 
mother — the only person whom he loved. His spirits fell, and he 
became haggard and miserable. 

The only thing for him to do now was, to protect Saxony, and 
secure that conquest — no very easy task. His dominions were 
now assailed by a French, a Swedish, and a Russian army. His 
capital was in the hands of the Croatians, and he was opposed by 
superior Austrian forces. No wonder that he was oppressed with 
melancholy, and saw only the ruin of his house. On one thing, 
however, he was resolved — never to be taken alive. So he pro- 
vided himself with poison, which he ever carried about his person. 

The heroic career of Frederic dates from this hour of misfor- 
tune and trial. Indeed, the heroism of all great men commences 
in perplexity, difficulty, and danger. Success is glorious; but 
success is obtained only through struggle. Frederic's career is a 
splendid example of that heroism which rises above danger, and 
extricates a man from difficulties when his cause is desperate. 

The King of Prussia first marched against the French. The two 
armies met at Rossbach. The number of the French was double 
that of the Prussians ; but the Prussians were better disciplined, and 
were commanded by an abler general. The French, however 



384 BATTLE OF LETJTHEN. [CHAP. XXIII. 

4 

felt secure of victoiy ; but they were defeated : seven thousand 
men were taken prisoners, together with their guns, ammunition, 
parrots, hair powder, and pomatum. The victoiy of Rossbach 
won for Frederic a great name, and diffused universal joy among 
the English and Prussians. 

After a brief rest, he turned his face towards Silesia, which had 
again fallen into the hands of the Austrians. It was for this prov- 
ince that he provoked the hostilities of Europe ; and pride, as well 
as interest, induced him to bend all his energies to regain it. Prince 
Charles of Lorraine commanded the forces of Maria Theresa, 
which numbered eighty thousand men. Frederic could only array 
against him an army of thirty thousand. And yet, in spite of the 
disparity of forces, and his desperate condition, he resolved to 
attack the enemy. His generals remonstrated ; but the hero gave 
full permission to all to retire, if they pleased. None were found 
to shun the danger. Frederic, like Napoleon, had the talent of 
exciting the enthusiasm of his troops. He both encouraged and 
threatened them. He declared that any cavalry regiment which 
did not, on being ordered, burst impetuously on the foe, should, 
after the battle, be dismounted, and converted into a garrison regi- 
ment. But he had no reason to complain. On the 5th of Decem- 
ber, the day of the ever-memorable battle of Leuthen, he selected an 
officer with fifty men as his body-guard. " I shall," said he, " ex- 
pose myself much to-day ; you are not to leave me for an instant ; 
if I fall, cover me quickly with a mantle, place me in a wagon, 
and tell the fact to no one. The battle cannot be avoided, and 
must be won." And he obtained a glorious victory. The Austrian 
general abandoned a strong position, because he deemed it beneath 
his dignity to contend with an inferior force in a. fortified camp. 
His imprudence lost him the battle. According to Napoleon, it 
was a masterpiece on the part of the victor, and placed him in the 
first rank of generals. Twenty thousand Austrians were either 
killed or taken. Breslau opened its gates to the Prussians, and 
Silesia was reconquered. The king's fame filled the world. Pic- 
tures of him were hung in almost every house. The enthusiasm 
of Germany was not surpassed by that of England. London was 
illuminated ; the gay scions of aristocracy proposed to the Prussian 
king to leave their country and join his army ; an annual subsidy 



CHAP. XXIII.] FALL OF DRESDEN. 385 

of seven hundred thousand pounds was granted by government. 
The battle of Leuthen was the most brilliant in Prussian annals ; 
but the battle of Rossbach, over the French, was attended by 
greater moral results. It showed, for the first time for several 
centuries, that the Germans were really a great people, and were 
a match for the French, hitherto deemed invincible. 

Early in the spring of 1758, Frederic was ready for a new 
campaign, which was soon signalized by a great victory over the 
Russians, at Zorndorff. It was as brilliant and decisive as the bat- 
tles of Rossbach and Leuthen. A force of thirty-two thousand 
men defeated an army of fifty-two thousand. Twenty-two thou- 
sand Russians lay dead on the field. This victory placed Frederic 
at the zenith of military fame. In less than a year, he had de- 
feated three great armies ; in less than a year, and when nearly 
driven to despair, — when his cause seemed hopeless, and his ene- 
mies were rejoicing in their strength, — he successively triumphed 
over the French, the Austrians, and the Russians ; the three most 
powerful nations on the continent of Europe. And his moderation 
after victory was as marked as his self-reliance after defeat. At 
this period, he stood out, to the wondering and admiring eyes of 
the world, as the greatest hero and general of modern times. But, 
after this, his career was more checkered, and he was still in dan- 
ger of being overwhelmed by his powerful enemies. 

The remainder of the campaign of 1758 was spent in driving 
the Austrians from Silesia, and in capturing Dresden. No capital 
in Europe has suffered more in war than this elegant and polished 
city. It has been often besieged and taken, but the victors have 
always spared its famous picture gallery — the finest collection of 
the works of the old masters, probably, in existence. 

• But Frederic was now assailed by a new enemy, Pope Benedict 
XIV. Pie sent a consecrated sword, a hat of crimson velvet, and 
a dove of pearls, — " the mystic symbol of the divine Comforter," 
— to Marshal Daun, the ablest of the Austrian generals, and the 
conqueror at Kolin and Hochkirchen. It was the rarest of the 
papal gifts, and had been only bestowed, in the course of six cen- 
turies, on Godfrey of Bouillon, by Urban II., when he took Jeru- 
salem ; on Alva, after his massacres in Holland ; and on Sobiesky, 
after his deliverance of Vienna, when besieged by the Turks. It 
33 



386 REVERSES OF FREDERIC. [cHAP. XXIII. 

4 

had never been conferred, except for the defence of the " Holy- 
Catholic Church." But this greatest of papal gifts made no im- 
pression on the age which read Montesquieu and Voltaire. A flood 
of satirical pamphlets inundated Christendom, and the world 
laughed at the impotent weapons which had once been thunder- 
bolts in the hands of Hildebrand or Innocent III. 

The fourth year of the war proved disastrous to Frederic. He 
did not lose military reputation, but he lost his cities and armies. 
The forces of his enemies were nearly overwhelming. The Aus- 
trians invaded Saxony, and menaced Silesia, while the Russians 
gained a victory over the Prussians at Kunersdorf, and killed 
eighteen thousand men. The Russians did not improve this 
great victory over Frederic, which nearly drove him to despair. 
But he rallied, and was again defeated in three disastrous battles. 
In his distress, he fed his troops on potatoes and rye bread, took 
from the peasant his last horse, debased his coin, and left his civil 
functionaries unpaid. 

The campaign of 1760 was, at first, unfavorable to the Prus- 
sians. Frederic had only ninety thousand men, and his enemies 
had two hundred thousand, in the field. He was therefore obliged 
to maintain the defensive. But still disasters thickened. General 
Loudon obtained a great victory over his general, Fouque, in Sile- 
sia. Instead of being discouraged by this new defeat, he formed 
the extraordinary resolution of wresting Dresden from the hands 
of the Austrians. But he pretended to retreat from Saxony, and 
advance to Silesia, General Daun was deceived, and decoyed 
from Saxony in pursuit of him. As soon as Frederic had retired 
a considerable distance from Dresden, he returned, and bombarded 
it. But he did not succeed in taking it, and was forced to retreat 
to Silesia. It was there his good fortune to gain a victory over 
the Austrians, and prevent their junction with the Russians. At 
Torgau, he again defeated an army of sixty-four thousand of the 
enemy, with a force of only forty-four thousand. This closed the 
campaign, and the position of the parties was nearly the same as 
at the commencement of it. The heart of Frederic was now 
ulcerated with bitterness in view of the perseverance of his ene- 
mies, who were resolved to crush him. He should, however, 
have remembered that he had provoked their implacable resent- 
ment, by the commission of a great crime. 



CHAP. XXIII.] CONTINUED DISASTERS. 387 

Although Frederic, by rare heroism, had maintained his ground, 
still his resources were now nearly exhausted, and he began to 
look around, in vain, for a new supply of men, horses, and pro- 
visions. The circle which his enemies had drawn around him 
was obviously becoming smaller. In a little while, to all appear- 
ance, he would be crushed by overwhelming forces. 

Under these circumstances, the campaign in 1761 was opened ; 
but no event of importance occurred until nearly the close of the 
year. On the whole, it was disastrous to Prussia. Half of Silesia 
was taken by the Austrians, and the Russian generals were suc- 
cessful in Pomerania. And a still greater misfortune happened to 
Frederic in consequence of the resignation of Pitt, who had ever 
been his firmest ally, and had granted him large subsidies, when 
he was most in need of them. On the retirement of the English 
minister, these subsidies were withdrawn, and' the party which had 
thwarted William III., which had persecuted Marlborough, and 
had given up the Catalans, came into power — the Tories. "It 
was indifferent to them whether the house of Hohenstaufen or 
Hohenzollern should be dominant in Germany." But Pitt and the 
Whigs argued that no sacrifice would be too great to preserve the 
balance of power. The defection of England, however, filled the 
mind of Frederic with implacable hatred, and he never could bear 
to hear even the name of England mentioned. The defection of 
this great ally made his affairs desperate ; and no one, taking a dis- 
passionate view of the contending parties, could doubt but that the 
ruin of the Prussian king was inevitable. Maria Theresa was so con- 
fident of success, that she disbanded twenty thousand of her troops. 

But Providence had ordered otherwise. A great and unex- 
pected change came over the fortunes of Frederic. His heroism 
was now to be rewarded — not the vulgar heroism which makes a 
sudden effort, and gains a single battle, but that well-sustained 
heroism which strives in the midst of defeat, and continues to hope 
when even noble hearts are sinking in despair. On the 5th of Janua- 
ry, 1762, Elizabeth, the empress of Russia, died ; and her successor, 
Peter III., who was an admirer of Frederic, and even a personal 
friend, returned the Prussian prisoners, withdrew his troops from 
the Prussian territories, dressed himself in a Prussian uniform, and 
wore the black eagle of Prussia on his breast. He even sent 
fifteen thousand troops to reenforce the army of Frederic. 



388 EXHAUSTION OF PRUSSIA BY THE WAR. [CHAP. XXIII. 

4 

England and France had long been wearied of this war, and 
formed a separate treaty for themselves. Prussia and Austria were 
therefore left to combat each other. If Austria, assisted by France 
and Russia, could not regain Silesia and ruin Prussia, it certainly 
was not strong enough to conquer Frederic single-handed. The 
proud Maria Theresa. Was compelled to make peace with that 
heroic but unprincipled robber, who had seized one of the finest 
provinces of the Austrian empire. In February, the treaty of 
Hubertsburg was signed, by which Frederic retained his spoil. 
He, in comparison with the other belligerent parties was the gainer. 
But no acquisition of territory could compensate for those seven 
years of toil, expense, and death. After six years, he entered his 
capital in triumph ; but he beheld every where the melancholy 
marks of devastation and suffering. The fields were unfilled, 
houses had been sacked, population had declined, and famine and 
disease had spread a funereal shade over the dwellings of the poor. 
He had escaped death, but one sixth of the whole male popula- 
tion of Prussia had been killed, and untold millions of property 
had been destroyed. In some districts, no laborers but women 
were seen in the fields, and fifteen thousand houses had been 
burnt in his own capital. 

It is very remarkable that no national debt was incurred by the 
king of Prussia, in spite of all his necessities. He always, in the 
worst of times, had a year's revenue in advance ; and, at the 
close of the war, to show the world that he was not then impov- 
erished, he built a splendid palace at Potsdam, which nearly 
equalled the magnificence of Versailles. 

But he also did all in his power to alleviate the distress which 
his wars had caused. Silesia received three millions of thalers, 
and Pomerania two millions. Fourteen thousand houses were 
rebuilt; treasury notes, which had depreciated, were redeemed; 
officers who had distinguished themselves were rewarded ; and the 
widows and children of those who had fallen were pensioned. 

The possession of Silesia did not, indeed, compensate for the 
Seven Years' War ; but the struggles which the brave Prussians 
made for their national independence, when assailed on all sides 
by powerful enemies, were not made in vain. Had they not been 
made, worse evils would have happened. Prussia would not have 
held her place in the scale of nations, and the people would have 



CHAP. XXIII.] DEATH OF FREDERIC. 389 

fallen in self-respect. It was wrong in Frederic to seize the pos- 
session of another. In so doing, he was in no respect better than 
a robber; and he paid a penalty for his crime. But he also fought 
in self-defence. This defence was honorable and glorious, and 
this entitles him to the name of Great. 

After the peace of Hubertsburg, in 1763, Prussia, for a time, 
enjoyed repose, and the king devoted himself to the improvement 
of his country. But the army received his greatest consideration, 
and a peace establishment of one hundred and sixty thousand men 
was maintained ; an immense force for so small a kingdom, but 
deemed necessary in such unsettled times. Frederic amused 
himself in building palaces, in writing books, and corresponding 
with literary friends. But schemes of ambition were, after all, 
paramount in his mind. 

The Seven Years' War had scarcely closed before the partition 
of Poland was effected, the greatest political crime of that age, 
for which the king of Prussia was chiefly responsible. 

The Bavarian war was the next great political event of impor- 
tance which occurred during the reign of Frederic. The emperor 
of Germany formed a project for the dismemberment of the electo- 
rate of Bavaria. The liberties of the Germanic body were in 
danger, and Frederic came to the rescue. On this occasion, he 
was the opposer of lawless ambition. In 1778, he took the field 
with a powerful army ; but no action ensued. The Austrian court 
found it expedient to abandon the design, and the peace of Teschen 
prevented another fearful contest. The two last public acts of 
Frederic were the establishment, in 1785, of the Germanic Union 
for preserving the constitution of the empire, and a treaty of amity 
and commerce, in 1786, with the United States of America, which 
was a model of liberal policy respecting the rights of independent 
nations, both in peace and war. 

He died on the 17th of August, 1786, in the seventy-fifth year 
of his age, and the forty-seventh of his reign. On the whole, he 
was one of the most remarkable men of his age, and had a great 
influence on the condition of his country. 

His distinguishing peculiarity was his admiration of, and devo- 
tion to, the military profession, which he unduly exalted. An 
ensign in his army ranked higher than a counsellor of legation, 
33* 



390 CHARACTER OF FREDERIC. [CHAP. XXIII. 

or a professor of philosophy. His ordinary mode of life was sim- 
ple and unostentatious, and his favorite residence was the palace 
of Sans Souci, at Potsdam. He was veiy fond of music, and of 
the society of literary men ; but he mortified them by his patron- 
izing arrogance, and worried them by his practical jokes. His 
favorite literary companions were infidel philosophers, and Voltaire 
received from him marks of the highest distinction. But the king 
of letters could not live with the despot who solicited his society, 
and an implacable hatred succeeded familiarity and friendship. 
The king had considerable literary reputation, and was the author 
of several works. He was much admired by his soldiers, and 
permitted in them uncommon familiarity. He was ever free from 
repulsive formality and bolstered dignity. He was industrious, 
frugal, and vigilant. Nothing escaped his eye, and he attended 
to the details of his administration. He was probably the most 
indefatigable sovereign that ever existed, but displayed more 
personal ability than enlarged wisdom. 

But able and successful as he was as a ruler, he was one of those 
men for whom it is impossible to entertain a profound respect. 
He was cruel, selfish, and parsimonious. He was prodigal of the 
blood of his subjects, and ungenerous in his treatment of those 
who had sacrificed eveiy thing for his sake. He ruled by fear 
rather than by love. He introduced into every department the 
precision of a rigid military discipline, and had no faith in any 
power but that of mechanical agencies. He quarrelled with his 
best friends, and seemed to enjoy the miseries he inflicted. He 
was contemptuous of woman, and disdainful of Christianity. His 
egotism was not redeemed by politeness or affability, and he made 
no efforts to disguise his unmitigated selfishness and heartless in- 
justice. He had no loftiness of character, and no appreciation of 
elevation of sentiment in others. He worshipped only himself, 
and rewarded those only who advanced his ambitious designs. 



References. — The Posthumous "Works of Frederic II. Gillies's View 
of the Reign of Frederic II. Thiebault's Memoires de Frederic le Grand. 
Voltaire's Idee du Roi de Prusse. Life of Baron Trenck. Macaulay's 
Essay on the Life and Times of Frederic the Great. Coxe's House of 
Austria. Tower's, Johnson's, and Campbell's Life of Frederic the Great. 



CHAP. XXIV.] THE GERMANIC CONSTITUTION. 391 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

MARIA THERESA AND CATHARINE II. 

, Contemporaneous with Frederic the Great were Maria Theresa 
and Catharine II. - — two sovereigns who claim an especial notice, 
as representing two mighty empires. The part which Maria 
Theresa took in the Seven Years' War has been often alluded to, 
and it is not necessary to recapitulate the causes or events of that 
war. She and Catharine II. were also implicated with Frederic in 
the partition of Poland. The misfortunes of that unhappy country 
will be separately considered. In alluding to Maria Theresa, we 
cannot but review the history of that great empire over which she 
ruled, the most powerful of the German states. The power of 
Austria, at different times since the death of the Emperor Charles 
V., threatened the liberties of Europe ; and, to prevent her ascen- 
dency, the kings of France, England, and Prussia have expended 
the treasure and wasted the blood of their subjects. 

By the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, at the close of the Thirty 
Years' War, the constitution of Germany was established upon a 
firm basis. The religious differences between the Catholics and 
the Protestants were settled, and religious toleration secured in all 
the states of the empire. It was settled that no decree of the 
Diet was to pass without a majority of suffrages, and that the 
Imperial Chamber and the Aulic Council should be composed of a 
due proportion of Catholics and Protestants. The former was 
instituted by the Emperor Maximilian I., in 1495, at the Diet of 
Worms, and was a judicial tribunal, and the highest court of 
appeal. It consisted of seventeen judges nominated by the empe- 
ror, and took cognizance of Austrian affairs chiefly. The Aulic 
Council was also judicial, and was composed of eighteen persons, 
and attended chiefly to business connected with the empire. The 
members of these two great judicial tribunals were Catholics ; and 
there were also frequent disputes between them as to their respective 
jurisdictions. It was ordained by the treaty of Westphalia that a 



392 THE GEKMANIC CONSTITUTION. [CHAP. XXIV. 

4 

perfect equality should be observed in the appointment of the 
members of these two important courts ; but, in fact, twenty-four 
Protestants and twenty-six Catholics were appointed to the Imperial 
Chamber. The various states had the right of presenting mem- 
bers, according to political importance. The Aulic Council was 
composed of six Protestants and twelve Catholics, and was a 
tribunal to settle difficulties between the various states of which 
Germany was composed. 

These states were nearly independent of each other, but united 
under one common head. Each state had its own peculiar gov- 
ernment, which was generally monarchical, and regulated its 
own coinage, police, and administration of justice. Each king- 
dom, electorate, principality, and imperial city, which were included 
in the states of Germany, had the right to make war, form alli- 
ances, conclude peace, and send ambassadors to foreign courts. 

The Diet of the empire consisted of representatives of each 
of the states, appointed by the princes themselves, and took 
cognizance of matters of common interest, such as regulations 
respecting commerce, the license of books, and the military force 
which each state was required to furnish. 

The emperor had power, in some respects, over all these states ; 
but it was chiefly confined to his hereditary dominions. He could 
not exercise any despotic control over the various princes of the 
empire ; but, as hereditary sovereign of Austria, Styria, Moravia, 
Bohemia, Hungary, and the Tyrol, he was the most powerful 
prince in Europe until the aggrandizement of Louis XIV. 

Ferdinand III. was emperor of Germany at the peace of West- 
phalia ; but he did not long survive it. He died in 1657, and his 
son Leopold succeeded him as sovereign of all the Austrian do- 
minions. He had not completed his eighteenth year, but never- 
theless was, five months after, elected Emperor of Germany by 
the Electoral Diet. 

Great events occurred during the reign of Leopold I. — the 
Turkish war, the invasion of the Netherlands by Louis XIV., the 
heroic struggles of the Prince of Orange, the French invasion of 
the Palatinate, the accession of a Bourbon prince to the throne 
of Spain, the discontents of Hungary, and the victories of Marl- 
borough and Eugene. Most of these have been already alluded 



CHAP. XXIV.] THE HUNGARIAN WAR. 393 

to, especially in the chapter on Louis XIV., and, therefore, will 
not be further discussed. 

The most important event connected with Austrian affairs, as 
distinct from those of France, England, and Holland, was the Hun- 
garian war. Hungaiy was not a province of Austria, but was a 
distinct state. In 1526, the crowns of the two kingdoms were 
united, like those of England and Hanover under George I. But 
the Hungarians were always impatient of the rule of the Emperor 
of Germany, and, in the space of a century, arose five times in 
defence of their liberties. 

In 1667, one of these insurrections took place, occasioned by 
the aggressive policy and government of Leopold. The Hunga- 
rians conspired to secure their liberties, but in vain. So soon 
as the emperor was aware of the conspiracy of his Hungarian 
subjects, he adopted vigorous measures, quartered thirty 
thousand additional troops in Hungary, loaded the people with 
taxes, occupied the principal fortresses, banished the chiefs, and 
changed the constitution of the country. He also attempted to 
suppress Protestantism, and committed all the excesses of a mili- 
tary despotism. These accumulated oppressions drove a brave 
but turbulent people to despair, and both Catholics and Protestants 
united for their common safety. The insurgents were assisted by 
the Prince of Transylvania, and were supplied with money and 
provisions by the French. They also found a noble defender in 
Emeric Tekeli, a young Hungarian noble, who hated Austria as 
intensely as Hannibal hated Rome, and who, at the head of twenty 
thousand men, defended his country against the emperor. More- 
over, he successfully intrigued with the Turks, who invaded Hun- 
gary with two hundred thousand men, and advanced to lay siege 
to Vienna. This immense army was defeated by John Sobieski, 
to whom Leopold appealed in his necessities, and the Turks were 
driven out of Hungary. Tekeli was gradually insulated from 
those who had formed the great support of his cause, and, in 
consequence of jealousies which Leopold had fomented between 
him and the Turks, was arrested and sent in chains to Constanti- 
nople. New victories followed the imperial army, and Leopold 
succeeded in making the crown of Hungary, hitherto elective, 
hereditary in his family. He instituted in the conquered country 



394 THE EMPEROR JOSEPH. [CHAP. XXIV. 

4 

a horrible inquisitorial tribunal, and perpetrated cruelties which 
scarcely find a parallel in the proscriptions of Marius and Sylla. 
His son Joseph, at the age of ten, was crowned king of Hungary 
with great magnificence, and with the usual solemnities. 

When the Hungarian difficulties were settled, Leopold had more 
leisure to prosecute his war with the Turks, in which he gained 
signal successes. The Ottoman Porte was humbled and crippled, 
and a great source of discontent to the Christian powers of Europe 
was removed. By the peace of Carlovitz, (1697,) Leopold secured 
Hungary and Sclavonia, which had been so long occupied by the 
Turks, and consolidated his empire by the acquisition of Transyl- 
vania. 

Leopold I. lived only to witness the splendid victories of Marl- 
borough and Eugene, by which the power of his great rival, Louis, 
was effectually reduced. He died in 1705, having reigned forty-six 
years ; the longest reign in the Austrian annals, except that of 
Frederic III. 

He was a man of great private virtues ; pure in his morals, 
faithful to his wife, a good father, and a kind master. He was 
minute in his devotions, unbounded in his charities, and cultivated 
in his taste. But he was reserved, cold, and phlegmatic. His 
jealousy of Sobieski was unworthy of his station, and his severities 
in Hungary made him the object of execration. He was narrow, 
bigoted, and selfish. But he lived in an age of great activity, and 
his reign forms an era in the military and civil institutions of his 
country. The artillery had been gradually lightened, and received 
most of the improvements which at present are continued. Bay- 
onets had been added to muskets, and the use of pikes abandoned. 
Armies were increased from twenty or thirty thousand men to one 
hundred thousand, more systematically formed. A police was 
established in the cities, and these were lighted and paved. Juris- 
prudence was improved, and numerous grievances were redressed. 

Leopold was succeeded by his eldest son, Joseph, who had an 
energetic and aspiring mind. His reign is memorable for the con- 
tinuation of the great War of the Spanish Succession, signalized by 
the victories of Marlborough and Eugene, the humiliation of the 
French, and the career of Charles XII. of Sweden. He also 
restored Bohemia to its electoral rights, rewarded the elector pala- 



CHAP. XXIV.] ACCESSION OF MARIA THEEESA. 395 

tine with the honors and territories wrested from his family by the 
Thirty Years' War, and confirmed the house of Hanover ha the 
possession of the ninth electorate. He had nearly restored tran- 
quillity to his country, when he died (1711) of the small-pox — 
a victim to the ignorance of his physicians. He was a lover and 
patron of the arts, and spoke several languages with elegance and 
fluency. But he had the usual faults of absolute princes; was 
prodigal in his expenditures, irascible in his temper, fond of 
pageants and pleasure, and enslaved by women. 

He was succeeded by his brother, the Archduke Charles, under 
the title of Charles VI. Soon after his accession, the tranquillity 
of Europe was established by the peace of Utrecht, and Austria 
once more became the preponderating power in Europe. But 
Charles VI. was not capable of appreciating the greatness of his 
position, or the true sources of national power. He, however., 
devoted himself zealously to the affairs of his empire, and effected 
some useful reforms. As he had no male issue, he had drawn up 
a solemn law, called the Pragmatic Sanction, according to which 
he transferred to his daughter, Maria Theresa, his vast hereditaiy 
possessions. He found great difficulty in securing the assent of 
the European powers to this law ; but, after a while, he effected 
his object. On his death, (1740,) Maria Theresa succeeded to all 
the dominions of the house of Austria. 

No princess ever ascended a throne under circumstances of 
greater peril, or in a situation which demanded greater energy and 
fortitude. Her army had dwindled to thirty thousand ; her treas- 
ury contained only one hundred thousand florins ; a general scar- 
city of provisions distressed the people, and the vintage was cut 
off by the frost. 

Under all these embarrassing circumstances, the Elector of Ba- 
varia laid claim to her territory, and Frederic II. marched into 
Silesia. It has been already stated that England sympathized with 
her troubles, and lent a generous aid. Her appeal to her Hunga- 
rian subjects, and the enthusiasm they manifested in her cause, 
have also been described. The boldness of Frederic and the distress 
of Maria Theresa drew upon them the eyes of all Europe. Hos- 
tilities were prosecuted four years, which resulted in the acquisition 
of Silesia by the King of Prussia. The peace of Dresden ( 1745) 



396 MARIA THERESA INSTITUTES REFORMS. [cHAP. XXIV. 

gave a respite to Germany, and Frederic and Maria Theresa 
prepared for new conflicts. 

The Seven Years' War has been briefly described, in connection 
with the- reign of Frederic, and need not be further discussed. The 
war was only closed by the exhaustion of all the parties engaged 
in it. 

In 1736, Maria Theresa was married to Francis Stephen, Grand 
Duke of Tuscany, and he was elected (1745) Emperor of Ger- 
many, under the title of Francis I. He died soon after the peace 
of Hubertsburg was signed, and his son Joseph succeeded to 
the throne of the empire, and was co-regent, as his father had 
been, with Maria Theresa. But the empress queen continued to 
be the real, as she was the legitimate, sovereign of Austria, and 
took an active part in all the affairs of Europe. 

When the tranquillity of her kingdom was restored, she founded 
various colleges, reformed the public schools, promoted agriculture, 
and instituted many beneficial regulations for the prosperity of her 
subjects. She reformed the church, diminished the number of 
superfluous clergy, suppressed the Inquisition and the Jesuits, and 
formed a system of military economy which surpassed the boasted 
arrangements of Frederic II. " She combined private economy 
with public liberality, dignity with condescension, elevation of soul 
with humility of spirit, and the virtues of domestic life with the 
splendid qualities which grace a throne." Her death, in 1780, 
was felt as a general loss to the people, who adored her ; and her 
reign is considered as one of the most illustrious in Austrian 
annals. 

Her reign was, however, sullied by the partition of Poland, in 
which she was concerned with Frederic the Great and Catharine 
II. Before this is treated, we will consider the reign of the Rus- 
sian empress. 



The reign of Catharine II., like that of Maria Theresa, is inter- 
linked with that of Frederic. But some remarks concerning her 
predecessors, after the death of Peter the Great, are first neces- 
sary. 

Catharine, the wife of Peter, was crowned empress before his 



CHAP. XXIV J SUCCESSORS OF PETER THE GREAT. 397 

death. The first years of her reign were agreeable to the people, 
because she diminished the taxes, and introduced a mild policy in 
the government of her subjects. She intrusted to Prince Menzi- 
koff an important share in the government of the realm. 

But Catharine, who, during the reign of Peter I., had displayed 
so much enterprise and intrepidity, very soon disdained business, 
and abandoned herself to luxury and pleasure. She died in 1727, 
and Peter II. ascended her throne, chiefly in consequence of the 
intrigues of Menzikoff, who, like Richelieu, wished to make the 
emperor his puppet. 

Peter II. was only thirteen years of age when he became em- 
peror. He was the son of Alexis, and, consequently, grandson of 
Peter I. His youth did not permit him to assume the reins of 
government, and every thing was committed to the care of Menzi- 
koff, who reigned, for a time, with absolute power. But he, at 
last, incurred the displeasure of his youthful master, and was exiled 
to Siberia. But Peter II. did not long survive the disgrace of his 
minister. He died of the small-pox, in 1730. 

He was succeeded by Anne, Duchess of Holstein, and eldest 
daughter of Catharine I. But she lived but a few months after her 
accession to the throne, and the Princess Elizabeth succeeded her. 

The Empress Elizabeth resembled her mother, the beautiful 
Catharine, but was voluptuous and weak. She abandoned herself 
to puerile amusements and degrading follies. And she was as 
superstitious as she was debauched. She would continue whole 
hours on her knees before an image, to which she spoke, and 
which she ever consulted ; and then would turn from bigotry to 
infamous sensuality. She hated Frederic II., and assisted Maria 
Theresa in her struggles. Russia gained no advantage from the 
Seven Years' War, except that of accustoming the Russians to the 
tactics of modern warfare. She died in 1762, and was succeeded 
by the Grand Duke Peter Fredorowitz, son of the Duke of Holstein 
and Anne, daughter of Peter I. He assumed the title of Peter III. 

Peter III. was a weak prince, but disposed to be beneficent. One 
of his first acts was to recall the numerous exiles whom the jeal- 
ousy of Elizabeth had consigned to the deserts of Siberia. Among 
them was Biren, the haughty lover and barbarous minister of 
the Empress Anne, and Marshal Munich, a veteran of eighty-two 
34 



398 MURDER OF PETER III. [CHAP. XXIV. 

years of age. Peter also abolished the Inquisition, established by 
Alexis Michaelowitz, and promoted commerce, the arts, and sci- 
ences. He attempted to imitate the king of Prussia, for whom he 
had an extravagant admiration. He set at liberty the Prussian 
prisoners, and made peace with Frederic II. He had a great 
respect for Germany, but despised the countiy over which he was 
called to reign. But his partiality for the Germans, and his 
numerous reforms, alienated the affections of his subjects, and he 
was not sufficiently able to curb the spirit of discontent. He imitated 
his immediate predecessors in the vices of drunkenness and sensu- 
ality, and was guilty of great imprudences. He reigned but a few 
months, being dethroned and murdered. His wife, the Empress 
Catharine, was the chief of the conspirators ; and she was urged 
to the bloody act by her own desperate circumstances. • She was 
obnoxious to her husband, who probably would have destroyed her, 
had his life been prolonged. She, in view of his hostility, and 
prompted by an infernal ambition, sought to dethrone her husband. 
She was assisted by some of the most powerful nobles, and gained 
over most of the regiments of the imperial guard. The Arch- 
bishop of Novgorod and the clergy were friendly to her, because 
they detested the reforms which Peter had attempted to make. 
Catharine became mistress of St. Petersburg, and caused herself 
to be crowned Empress of Russia, in one of the principal churches. 
Peter had timely notice of the revolt, but not the energy to sup- 
press it. He listened to the entreaties of women, rather than to 
the counsels of those veteran generals who still supported his 
throne. He was timid, irresolute, and vacillating. He was 
doomed. He was a weak and infatuated prince, and nothing could 
save him. He surrendered himself into the hands of Catharine, 
abdicated his empire, and, shortly after, died of poison. His wife 
seated herself, without further opposition, on his throne ; and the 
principal nobles of the empire, the army, and the clergy, took the 
oath of allegiance, and the monarchs of Europe acknowledged 
her as the absolute sovereign of Russia. In 1763, she was firmly 
established in the power which had been before wielded by Cath- 
arine I. She had dethroned an imbecile prince, whom she ab- 
horred ; but the revolution was accomplished without bloodshed, 
and resulted in the prosperity of Russia. 



CHAP. XXIV.] ASSASSINATION OF IVAN. 399 

Catharine was a woman of great moral defects ; but she had 
many excellences to counterbalance them ; and her rule was, on the 
whole, able and beneficent. She was no sooner established in 
the power which she had usurped, than she directed attention to 
the affairs of her empire, and sought to remedy the great evils 
which existed. She devoted herself to business, advanced com- 
merce and the arts, regulated the finances, improved the jurispru- 
dence of the realm, patronized all works of internal improvement, 
rewarded eminent merit, encouraged education, and exercised a 
liberal and enlightened policy in her intercourse with foreign 
powers. After engaging in business with her ministers, she would 
converse with scholars and philosophers. With some she studied 
politics, and with others literature. She tolerated all religions, 
abolished odious courts, and enacted mild laws. She held out 
great inducements for foreigners to settle in Russia, and founded 
colleges and hospitals in all parts of her empire. 

Beneficent as her reforms were, she nevertheless committed 
some great political crimes. One of these was the assassination 
of the dethroned Ivan, the great-grandson of the Czar Ivan Alex- 
ejewitsch, who was brother of Peter the Great. On the death of 
the Empress Anne, in 1731, he had been proclaimed emperor ; 
but when Elizabeth was placed upon the throne, the infant was 
confined in the fortress of Schlussenburg. Here he was so closely 
guarded and confined, that he was never allowed access to the 
open air or the light of day. On the accession of Catharine, he 
was twenty-three years of age, and was extremely ignorant and 
weak. But a conspiracy was formed to liberate him, and place 
him on the throne. The attempt proved abortive, and the prince 
perished by the sword of his jailers, who were splendidly rewarded 
for their infamous services. 

Her scheme of foreign aggrandizement, and especially her 
interference in the affairs of Poland, caused the Ottoman Porte to 
declare war against her, which war proved disastrous to Turkey, 
and contributed to aggrandize the empire of Russia. The Turks 
lost several battles on the Pruth, Dniester, and Danube ; the prov- 
inces of Wallachia, and Moldavia, and Bessarabia submitted to the 
Russian arms ; while a great naval victory, in the Mediterranean, 
was gained by Alexis Orloff, whose share in the late revolution 
had raised him from the rank of a simple soldier to that of a 



400 DEATH OF CATHARINE. [CHAP. XXIV. 

general of the empire, and a favorite of the empress. The naval 
defeat of the Turkstat Tschesme, by Orloff and Elphinstone, was 
one of the most signal of that age, and greatly weakened the 
power of Turkey. The war was not terminated until 1774, when 
the Turks were compelled to make peace, by the conditions of 
which, Russia obtained a large accession of territory, a great sum 
of money, the free navigation of the Black Sea, and a passage 
through the Dardanelles. 

In 1772 occurred the partition of Poland between Austria, Prus- 
sia, and Russia. Catharine and Frederic II. were the chief authors 
of this great political crime, which will be treated in the notice on 
Poland. 

The reign of Catharine was not signalized by any other great 
political events which affected materially the interests of Europe, 
except the continuation of the war with the Turks, which broke 
out again in 1778, and which was concluded in 1792, by the treaty 
of Jassy. In this war, Prince Potemkin, the favorite and prime 
minister of Catharine, greatly distinguished himself; also General 
Suwarrow, afterwards noted for his Polish campaigns. In this 
war Russia lost two hundred thousand men, and the Turks three 
hundred and thirty thousand, besides expending two hundred and 
fifty millions of piasters. The most important political conse- 
quence was the aggrandizement of Russia, whose dominion was 
established on the Black Sea. 

Catharine, having acquired, either by arms or intrigues, almost 
half of Poland, the Crimea, and. a part of the frontiers of Turkey, 
then turned her arms against Persia. But she died before she 
could realize her dreams of conquest. At her death, she was the 
most powerful sovereign that ever reigned in Russia. She was 
succeeded by her son, Paul I., (1796,) and her remains were de- 
posited by the side of her murdered husband, while his chief mur- 
derers, Alexis Orloff and Prince Baratinski, were ordered to stand, 
at her funeral, on each side of his coffin as chief mourners. 

Catharine, though a woman of great energy and talent, was 
ruled by favorites ; the most distinguished of whom were Gregory 
Orloff and Prince Potemkin. The former was a man of brutal 
manners and surprising audacity ; the latter was more civilized, 
but was a man disgraced, like Orloff, by every vice. His mem- 
ory, however, is still cherished in Russia on account of his military 



CHAP. XXIV.] HER CHARACTER. 401 

successes. He received more honors and rewards from his sov- 
ereign than is recorded of any favorite and minister of modern 
times. His power was equal to what Richelieu enjoyed, and his 
fortune was nearly as great as Mazarin's. He was knight of the 
principal orders of Prussia, Sweden, Poland, and Russia, field- 
marshal, commander-in-chief of the Russian armies, high admiral 
of the fleets, great hetman of the Cossacks, and chamberlain of 
the empress. He received from her a fortune of fifty millions of 
roubles ; equal to nearly twenty-five millions of dollars. The 
OrlofFs received also about seventeen millions in lands, and palaces, 
and money, with forty-five thousand peasants. 

Catharine had two passions which never left her but with her 
last breath — the love of the other sex, which degenerated into 
the most unbounded licentiousness, and the love of glory, which 
sunk into vanity. She expended ninety millions of roubles on her 
favorites, the number of which is almost incredible ; and she was 
induced to engage in wars, which increased the burdens of her 
subjects. 

With the exception of these two passions, her character is inter- 
esting and commanding. Her reign was splendid, and her court 
magnificent. Her institutions and monuments were to Russia what 
the magnificence of Louis XIV. was to France. She was active 
and regular in her habits ; was never hurried away by anger, and 
was never a prey to dejection ; caprice and ill humor were never 
perceived in her conduct ; she was humorous, gay, and affable ; 
she appreciated literature, and encouraged good institutions ; and, 
with all her faults, obtained the love and reverence of her subjects. 
She had not the virtues of Maria Theresa, but had, perhaps, greater 
energy of character. Her foulest act was her part in the dis- 
memberment of Poland, which now claims a notice. 



References. — For the reign of Maria Theresa, see Archdeacon Coxe's 
Memoirs of the House of Austria, which is the most interesting and 
complete. See also Putter's Constitution of the Germanic Empire ; 
Kolhrausch's History of Germany; Heeren's Modern History; Smyth's 
Lectures ; also a history of Germany, in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopaedia. For 
a life of Catharine, see Castina's Life, translated by Hunter; Tooke's 
life of Catharine II. ; Segur's Vie de Catharine II. ; Coxe's Travels ; Hee- 
ren's and Russell's Modern History. 
34* 



402 CALAMITIES OF POLAND. [CHAP. XXV. 

4 

CHAPTER XXV. 

CALAMITIES OF POLAND. 

No kingdom in Europe has been subjected to so many misfor- 
tunes and changes, considering its former greatness, as the Polish 
monarchy. Most of the European states have retained their 
ancient limits, for several centuries, without material changes, 
but Poland has been conquered, dismembered, and plundered. Its 
ancient constitution has been completely subverted, and its exten- 
sive provinces are now annexed to the territories of Russia, Aus- 
tria, and Prussia. The greatness of the national calamities has 
excited the sympathy of Christian nations, and its unfortunate fate 
is generally lamented. 

In the sixteenth century, Poland was a greater state than Russia, 
and was the most powerful of the northern kingdoms of Europe. 
The Poles, as a nation, are not, however, of very ancient date. 
Prior to the ninth century, they were split up into numerous tribes, 
independent of each other, and governed by their respective 
chieftains. Christianity was introduced in the tenth century, and 
the earliest records of the people were preserved by the monks. 
We know but little, with certainty, until the time of Piast, who 
united the various states, and whose descendants reigned until 
1386, when the dynasty of the Jagellons commenced, and continued 
till 1572. Under the princes of this line, the government was 
arbitrary and oppressive. War was the great business and amuse- 
ment of the princes, and success in it brought the highest honors. 
The kings were, however, weak, cruel, and capricious, ignorant, 
fierce, and indolent. The records of their reigns are the records 
of drunkenness, extortion, cruelty, lust, and violence — the com- 
mon history of all barbarous kings. There were some of the 
Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great 
majority of them, like the Merovingian and Carlovingian princes 
of the Dark Ages, were unfit to reign, were the slaves of super- 
stition, and the tools of designing priests. There is a melancholy 



CHAP. XXV.] THE CROWN OF POLAND MADE ELECTIVE. 403 

gloom hanging over the annals of the Middle Ages, especially in 
reference to kings. And yet their reigns, though stained by 
revolting crimes, generally were to be preferred to the anarchy of 
an interregnum, or the overgrown power of nobles. 

The brightest period in the history of Poland was during the 
reigns of the Jagellon princes, especially when Casimir I. held the 
sceptre of empire. During his reign, Lithuania, which then com- 
prised Hungary, Bohemia, and Silesia, was added to his kingdom. 
The university of Cracow was founded, and Poland was the great 
resort of the Jews, to whom were committed the trade and com- 
merce of the land. But the rigors of the feudal system, and the 
vast preponderance of the aristocracy, proved unfortunate for the 
prosperity of the kingdom. What in England was the foundation 
of constitutional liberty, proved in Poland to be subversive of all 
order and good government. In England, the representative of 
the nation was made an instrument in the hands of the king of 
humbling the great nobility. Absolutism was established upon the 
ruins of feudalism. But, in Poland, the Diet of the nation con- 
trolled the king, and, as the representatives of the nobility alone, 
perpetuated the worst evils of the feudal system. 

When Sigismund II., the last male heir of the house of Jagel- 
lon, died, in 1572, the nobles were sufficiently powerful to make 
the crown elective. From this period we date the decline of 
Poland. The Reformation, so beneficent in its effects, did not 
spread to this Sclavonic country ; and the barbarism of the Mid- 
dle Ages received no check. On the death of Sigismund, the 
nobles would not permit the new sovereign to be elected by the 
Diet, but only by the whole body of the nobility. The plain of 
Praga was the place selected for the election ; and, at the time 
appointed, such a vast number of nobles arrived, that the plain, of 
twelve miles in circumference, was scarcely large enough to con- 
tain them and their retinues. There never was such a sight seen 
since the crusaders were marshalled on the field of Chalcedon, 
for all the nobles were gorgeously apparelled, and decked with 
ermine, gold, and jewels. The Polish horseman frequently invests 
half his fortune in his horse and dress. In the centre of the field 
was the tent of the late king, capable of accommodating eight 
thousand men. The candidates for the crown were Ernest, 



404 ELECTION OF HENRY, DUKE OF ANJOU. [CHAP. XXV. 

Arch-duke of Austria ; the Czar of Russia ; a Swedish prince ; 
and Henry of Vatois, Duke of Anjou, and brother of Charles IX., 
king of France. 

The first candidate was rejected because the house of Austria 
was odious to the Polish nobles ; the second, on account of his 
arrogance ; and the third, because he was not powerful enough to 
bring advantage to the republic. The choice fell on the Duke of 
Anjou ; and he, for the title of a king, agreed to the ignominious 
conditions which the Poles proposed, viz., that he should not 
attempt to influence the election of his successors, or assume the 
title of heir of the monarchy, or declare war without the consent 
of the Diet, or impose taxes of any description, or have power to 
appoint his ambassadors, or any foreigner to a benefice in the 
church ; that he should convoke the Diet every two years ; and 
that he should not marry without its permission. He also was 
required to furnish four thousand French troops, in case of war ; to 
apply annually, for the sole benefit of the Polish state, a consid- 
erable part of his hereditary revenues ; to pay the debts of the 
crown ; and to educate, at his own expense, at Paris or Cracow, 
one hundred Polish nobles. He had scarcely been crowned 
when his brother died, and he was called to the throne of France. 
But he found it difficult to escape from his kingdom, the govern- 
ment of which he found to be burdensome and vexatious. No 
criminal ever longed to escape from a prison, more than this 
prince to break the fetters which bound him to his imperious 
subjects. He resolved to run away ; concealed his intentions with 
great address ; gave a great ball at his palace ; and in the midst 
of the festivities, set out with full speed towards Silesia. He was 
pursued, but reached the territories of the emperor of Germany 
before he was overtaken. He reached Paris in safety, and was 
soon after crowned as king of France. 

He was succeeded by Stephen, Duke of Transylvania ; and he, 
again, by Sigismund, Prince of Sweden. The two sons of Sigis- 
mund, successively, were elected kings of Poland, the last of 
whom, John II., was embroiled in constant war. It was during 
his disastrous reign that John Sobieski, with ten thousand Poles, 
defeated eighty thousand Cossacks, the hereditary enemies of 
Poland. On the death of Michael, who had succeeded John II., 



CHAP. XXV.] SOBIESKI ASSISTS THE EMPEROR LEOPOLD. 405 

Sobieski was elected king, and he assumed the title of John III. 
He was a native noble, and was chosen for his military talents 
and successes. Indeed, Poland needed a strong arm to defend her. 
Her decline had already commenced, and Sobieski himself could 
not avert the ruin which impended. For some time, Poland en- 
joyed cessation from war, and the energies of the monarch were 
directed to repair the evils which had disgraced his country. But 
before he could prosecute successfully any useful reforms, the war 
between the Turks and the eastern powers of Europe broke out, 
and Vienna was besieged by an overwhelming army of two hun- 
dred thousand Mohammedans. The city was bravely defended, 
but its capture seemed inevitable. The emperor of Germany, 
Leopold, in his despair, implored the aid of Sobieski. He was 
invested with the command of the allied armies of Austrians, Ba- 
varians, Saxons, and Poles, amounting to seventy thousand men. 
With this force he advanced to relieve Vienna. He did not hesi- 
tate to attack the vast forces encamped beneath the walls of the 
Austrian capital, and obtained one of the most signal victories in 
the history of war. Immense treasures fell into his hands, and 
Vienna and Christendom were saved. 

But the mean-spirited emperor treated his deliverer with arro- 
gance and chilling coldness. No gratitude was exhibited or felt. 
But the pope sent him the rarest of his gifts — " the dove of 
pearls." Sobieski, in spite of the ingratitude of Leopold, pursued 
his victories over the Turks ; and, like Charles Martel, ten centu- 
ries before, freed Europe from the danger of a Mohammedan 
yoke. But he saved a serpent, when about to be crushed, which 
turned and stung him for his kindness. The dismemberment of 
his country soon followed the deliverance of Vienna. 

He was succeeded, in 1696, by Frederic Augustus, Elector of 
Saxony, whose reign was a constant succession of disasters. 
During his reign, Poland was invaded and conquered by Charles 
XII. of Sweden. He was succeeded by his son, Frederic Augus- 
tus II., the most beautiful, extravagant, luxurious, and licentious 
monarch of his age. But he was a man of elegant tastes, and he 
filled Dresden with pictures and works of art, which are still 
the admiration of travellers. His reign, as king of Poland, was 
exceedingly disastrous. Muscovite and Prussian armies traversed 



406 THE LIBERUM VETO. [CHAP. XXV. 

the plains of Poland at pleasure, and extorted whatever they 
pleased. Faction was opposed by faction in the field and in the 
Diet. The national assembly was dissolved by the veto, the 
laws were disregarded, and brute force prevailed on every side. 
The miserable peasants in vain besought the protection of their 
brutal yet powerless lords. Bands of robbers infested the roads, 
and hunger invaded the cottages. The country rapidly declined 
in wealth, population, and public spirit. 

Under the reign of Stanislaus II., who succeeded Frederic 
< Augustus II., in 1764, the ambassadors of Prussia, Austria, 
and Russia, informed the miserable king that, in order to pre- 
vent further bloodshed, and restore peace to Poland, the three 
powers had determined to insist upon their claims to some of the 
provinces of the kingdom. This barefaced and iniquitous scheme 
for the dismemberment of Poland originated with Frederic the 
Great. So soon as the close of the Seven Years' War allowed 
him repose, he turned his eyes to Poland, with a view of seizing 
one of her richest provinces. Territories inhabited by four million 
eight hundred thousand people, were divided between Frederic, 
Maria Theresa, and Catharine II. There were no scruples of 
conscience in the breast of Frederic, or of Catharine, a woman 
of masculine energy, but disgraceful morals. The conscience of 
Maria Theresa, however, long resisted. " The fear of hell," said 
she, " restrains me from seizing another's possessions ; " but 
sophistiy was brought to bear upon her mind, and the lust of 
dominion asserted its powerful sway. This crime was regarded 
with detestation by the other powers of Europe ; but they were 
too much occupied with their own troubles to interfere, except by 
expostulation. England was disturbed by difficulties in the colo- 
nies, and France was distracted by revolution aiy tumults. 

Stanislaus, robbed of one third of his dominions, now directed 
his attention to those reforms which had been so long imperatively 
needed. He intrusted to the celebrated Zamoyski the task of 
revising the constitution. The patriotic chancellor recommended 
the abolition of the " liberum veto," a fatal privilege, by which any 
one of the armed equestrians, who assembled on the plain of Praga 
to elect a king, or deliberate on state affairs, had power to nullify 
the most important acts, and even to dissolve the assembly. A 



CHAP. XXV.] THE FALL OF POLAND. 407 

single word, pronounced in the vehemence of domestic strife, or 
by the influence of external corruption, could plunge the nation 
into a lethargic sleep. And faction went so far as often to lead to 
the dissolution of the assembly. The treasury, the army, the 
civil authority then fell into a state of anarchy. Zamoyski also 
recommended the emancipation of serfs, the encouragement of 
commerce, the elevation of the trading classes, and the abolition 
of the fatal custom of electing a king. But the Polish nobles, 
infatuated and doomed, opposed these wholesome reforms. They 
even had the madness to invoke the aid of the Empress Catharine 
to protect them in their ancient privileges. She sent an army into 
Poland, and great disturbances resulted. 

Too late, at last, the nobles perceived their folly, and adopted 
some of the proposed reforms. But these reforms gave a new 
pretence to the allied powers for a second dismemberment. An 
army of one hundred thousand men invaded Poland, to effect a 
new partition. The unhappy country, without fortified towns 
or mountains, abandoned by all the world, distracted by divisions, 
and destitute of fortresses and military stores, was crushed by the 
power of gigantic enemies. There were patriotism and bravery 
left, but no union or organized strength. The patriots made a 
desperate struggle under Kosciusko, a Lithuanian noble, but were 
forced to yield to inevitable necessity. Warsaw for a time held 
out against fifty thousand men ; but the Polish hero was defeated 
in a decisive engagement, and unfortunately taken prisoner. His 
countrymen still rallied, and another bloody battle was fought at 
Praga, opposite Warsaw, on the other side of the Vistula, and ten 
thousand were slain ; Praga was reduced to a heap of ruins ; 
and twelve thousand citizens were slaughtered in cold blood. 
Warsaw soon after surrendered, Stanislaus was sent as a captive 
to Russia, and the final partition of the kingdom was made. 

" Sarmatia fell," but not " unwept," or " without a crime." 
" She fell," says Alison, " a victim of her own dissensions, of the 
chimera of equality falsely pursued, and the rigor of aristocracy 
unceasingly maintained. The eldest born of the European family 
was the first to perish, because she had thwarted all the ends of 
the social union ; because she united the turbulence of demo- 
cratic to the exclusion of aristocratic societies ; because she had 



408 THE FALL OF POLAND. [CHAP. XXV. 

the vacillation of a republic without its energy, and the oppression 
of a monarchy without its stability. The Poles obstinately refused 
to march with other nations in the only road to civilization ; they 
had valor, but it could not enforce obedience to the laws ; it could 
not preserve domestic tranquillity ; it could not restrain the vio- 
lence of petty feuds and intestine commotions ; it could not pre- 
serve the proud nobles from unbounded dissipation and corruption ; 
it could not prevent foreign powers from interfering in the affairs 
of the kingdom ; it could not dissolve the union of these powers 
with discontented parties at home ; it could not inspire the slowly- 
moving machine of government with vigor, when the humblest 
partisan, corrupted with foreign money, could arrest it with a word ; 
it could not avert the entrance of foreign armies to support the 
factious and rebellious ; it could not uphold, in a divided country, 
the national independence against the combined effects of foreign 
and domestic treason ; finally, it could not effect impossibilities, 
nor turn aside the destroying sword which had so long impended 
over it." 

But this great crime was attended with retribution. Prussia, in 
her efforts to destroy Poland, paralyzed her armies on the Rhine. 
Suwarrow entered Warsaw when its spires were reddened by the 
fires of Praga ; but the sack of the fallen capital was forgotten 
in the conflagration of Moscow. The remains of the soldiers of 
Kosciusko sought a refuge in republican France, and served with 
distinction, in the armies of Napoleon, against the powers that had 
dismembered their country. 

The ruin of Poland, as an independent state, was not fully ac- 
complished until the year 1832, when it was incorporated into the 
great empire of Russia. But the history of the late revolution, 
with all its melancholy results, cannot be well presented in this 
connection. 

References. — Fletcher's History of Poland. Rulhiere's Histoire de 
l'Anarchie dePologne. Coyer's Vie de Sobieski. Parthenay's History of 
Augustus II. Hordynski's History of the late Polish Revolution. Also 
see Lives of Frederic II., Maria Theresa, and Catharine II. ; contempora- 
neous histories of Prussia, Russia, and Austria ; Alison's History of 
Europe ; Smyth's Lectures ; Russell's Modern Europe ; Heeren's Modern 
History. 



CHAP. XXVI.] SARACENIC EMPIRE. 409 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

While the great monarchies of Western Europe were strug- 
gling for preeminence, and were developing resources greater 
than had ever before been exhibited since the fall of the Roman 
empire, that great power which had alarmed and astonished Chris- 
tendom in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, began to show 
the signs of weakness and decay. Nothing, in the history of 
society, is more marvellous than the rise of Mohammedan king- 
doms. The victories of the Saracens and Turks were rapid and 
complete ; and in the tenth century, they were the most successful 
warriors on the globe, and threatened to subvert the world'. They 
had planted the standard of the Prophet on the walls of Eastern 
capitals, and had extended their conquests to India on the east, and 
to Spain on the west. Powerful Mohammedan states had arisen 
in Asia, Africa, and Europe, and the Crusaders alone arrested the 
progress of these triumphant armies. The enthusiasm which the 
doctrines of Mohammed had kindled, cannot easily be explained; 
but it was fresh, impetuous, and self-sacrificing. Successive armies 
of Mohammedan invaders overwhelmed the ancient realms of 
civilization, and reduced the people whom they conquered and 
converted to a despotic yoke. But success enervated the victorious 
conquerors of the East, the empire of the Caliphs was broken 
up, and great changes took place even in those lands where the 
doctrines of the Koran prevailed. Mohammed perpetuated a reli- 
gion, but not an empire. Different Saracenic chieftains revolted 
from the " Father of the Faithful," and established separate king- 
doms, or viceroyalties, nearly independent of the acknowledged 
successors of Mohammed. The Saracenic empire was early 
dismembered, and the sultans of Egypt, Spain, and Syria con- 
tested for preeminence. 

But a new power arose on the ruins of the Saracen empire, and 
became the enthusiastic defenders of the religion of Islam. The 
35 



410 RISE OF THE TURKS. . [CHAP. XXVI. 

Turks were an obscure tribe of barbarians when Bagdad was the 
seat of a powerful monarchy. Their origin has been traced to 
the wilds of Scythia ; but they early deserted their native forests 
in search of more fruitful regions. When Apulia and Sicily were 
subdued by the Norman pirates, a swarm of these Scythian shep- 
herds settled in Armenia, probably in the ninth century, and, by 
their valor and simplicity, soon became a powerful tribe. Not 
long after they were settled in their new abode, the Sultan of 
Persia invoked their aid to assist him in his wars against the Ca- 
liph of Babylon, his great rival. The Turks complied with his 
request, and their arms were successful. The sultan then refused 
to part with such useful auxiliaries, and moreover, fearing their 
strength, designed to employ them in his wars against the Hindoos, 
and to shut them up in the centre of his dominions. The Turk- 
mans rebelled, withdrew into a mountainous part of the country, 
became robbers, and devastated the adjacent countries. The band 
of robbers gradually swelled into a powerful army, gained a great 
victory over the troops of the Sultan Mohammed, and placed 
their chieftain upon the Persian throne, (1038.) According to 
Gibbon, the new monarch was chosen by lot, and Seljuk had the 
fortune to win the prize of conquest, and became the founder 
of the dynasty of the Shepherd kings. During the reign of his 
grandson Togrul, the ancient Persian princes were expelled, and 
the Turks embraced the religion of the conquered. In 1055, the 
Turkish sultan delivered the Caliph of Bagdad from the arms 
of the Caliph of Egypt, who disputed with him the title of Co?n- 
mander of the Faithful. For this service he was magnificently 
rewarded by the grateful successor of the Prophet, who, at that 
time, banqueted in his palace at Bagdad — a venerable phantom 
of power. The victorious sultan was publicly commissioned as 
lieutenant of the caliph, and he was virtually seated on the throne 
of the Abbassides. Shortly after, the Turkish conqueror invaded 
the falling empire of the Greeks, and its Asiatic provinces were 
irretrievably lost. In the latter part of the eleventh century, the 
Turkish power was established in Asia Minor, and Jerusalem itself 
had fallen into the hands of the sultan. He exacted two pieces 
of gold from the Christian pilgrim, and treated him, moreover, 
with greater cruelty than the Saracens had ever exercised. The 



CHAP. XXVI.] TURKISH CONQUERORS. 411 

extortion and oppression of the Turkish, masters of the Sacred City- 
led to the Crusades and the final possession of Western Asia by 
the followers of the Prophet. The Turkish power constantly 
increased with the decline of the Saracenic and Greek empires; 
but the Seljukian dynasty, like that of Abbassides at Bagdad, at 
last run out, and Othman, a soldier of fortune, became sultan of 
the Turks. He is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman empire ; 
and under his reign, from 1299 to 1326, the Moslems made rapid 
strides in the progress of aggrandizement. 

Orkham, his son, instituted the force of the Janizaries, completed 
the conquest of Bithynia, and laid the foundation of Turkish power 
in Europe. Under his successor, Amurath I., Adrianople became 
the capital of the Ottoman empire, and the rival of Constantinople. 
Bajazet succeeded Amurath, and his conquests extended from the 
Euphrates to the Danube. In 1396, he defeated, at Nicopolis, a 
confederate army of one hundred thousand Christians ; and, in the 
intoxication of victory, declared that he would feed his horse with 
a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter, at Rome. Had it not 
been for the victories of Tamerlane, Constantinople, which con- 
tained within its walls the feeble fragments of a great empire, would 
also have fallen into his hands. He was unsuccessful in his war 
with the great conqueror of Asia, and was defeated at the battle 
of Angora, (1402,) and taken captive, and carried to Samarcand, 
by Tamerlane, in an iron cage. 

The great Bajazet died in captivity, and Mohammed I. succeeded 
to his throne. He restored, on a firmer basis, the fabric of the 
Ottoman monarchy, and devoted himself to the arts of peace. 
His successor, Amurath II., continued hostilities with the Greeks, 
and laid siege to Constantinople. But this magnificent city, the 
last monument of Roman greatness, resisted the Turkish arms 
only for a while. In 1453, it fell before an irresistible force of 
three hundred thousand men, supported by a fleet of three hun- 
dred sail. The Emperor Constantine succeeded in maintaining a 
siege of fifty-three days ; and the religion and empire of the 
Christians were trodden to the dust by the Moslem conquerors. 
The city was sacked, the people were enslaved, and the Church 
of St. Sophia was despoiled of the oblations of ages, and converted 
into a Mohammedan mosque. One hundred and twenty thousand 



412 PROGRESS OF THE TURKS. [CHAP. XXVI. 

manuscripts perished^ in the sack of Constantinople, and the 
palaces and treasure of the Greeks were transferred to semi- 
barbarians. 

From that time, the Byzantine capital became the seat of the 
Ottoman empire ; and, for more than two centuries, Turkish armies 
excited the fears and disturbed the peace of the world. They 
gradually subdued and annexed Macedonia, the Peloponnesus, 
Epirus, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, Armenia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, 
India, Tunis, Algiers, Media, Mesopotamia, and a part of Hungary, 
to the dominions of the sultan. In the sixteenth century, the Otto- 
man empire was the most powerful in the world. Nor should we 
be surprised, in view of the great success of the Turks, when we 
remember their singular bravery, their absorbing ambition, their 
almost incredible obedience to the commands of the sultan, and 
the unity which pervaded the national councils. They also fought 
to extend their religion, to which they were blind devotees. After 
the capture of Constantinople, a succession of great princes sat on 
the most absolute throne known in modern times ; men disgraced 
by many crimes, but still singularly adapted to extend their dominion. 

The progress of the Turks justly alarmed the Emperor Charles 
V., and he exerted all his energies to unite the German princes 
against them, but unsuccessfully. The Sultan Solyman, called the 
Magnificent, maintained his supremacy over Transylvania, Walla- 
chia, and Moldavia, ravaged Hungary, wrested Rhodes from the 
Knights of St. John, conquered the whole of Arabia, and attacked 
the Portuguese dominion in India. He raised the Turkish empire 
to the highest pitch of its greatness, and died while besieging 
Sigeth, as he was completing the conquest of Hungary. His 
empire was one vast camp, and his decrees were dated from the 
imperial stirrup. The iron sceptre which he and his successors 
wielded was imbrued in blood ; and discipline alone was the poli- 
tics of his soldiers, and rapine their resources. 

Selim II. succeeded Solyman, and set the ruinous example of 
not going himself to the wars, and of carrying them on by his 
lieutenants. His son, Murad III., penetrated into Russia and 
Poland, and made war on the Emperor of Germany. Mohammed 
III., who died in 1604, murdered all his brothers, nineteen in num- 
ber, and executed his own son. It was usual, when an emperor 



CHAP. XXVI.] DECLINE OF TURKISH POWER. 413 

mounted the throne, for him to put to death his brothers and 
nephews. Indeed, the characters of the sultans were marked by- 
unusual ferocity and jealousy, and they were unscrupulous in the 
means they took to advance their power. The world has never 
seen more suspicious tyrants ; and it ever must excite our wonder 
that they were so unhesitatingly obeyed. But they were, however, 
sometimes dethroned by the Janizaries, who constituted a sort of 
imperial guard. Osman IL, fearing their power, and disgusted with 
their degeneracy, resolved to destroy them, as dangerous to the state. 
But his design was discovered, and he himself lost his life, (1622.) 
Several monsters of tyranny and iniquity succeeded him, whose 
reigns were disgraced by every excess of debauchery and cruelty. 
Their subjects, however, had not, as yet, lost vigor, temperance, 
and ambition, and still continued to furnish troops unexampled 
for discipline and bravery, and bent on conquest and dominion. 

The Turkish power received no great checks until the reign of 
Mohammed IV., during which Sobieski defeated an immense 
army, which had laid siege to Vienna. By the peace of Carlo- 
vitz, in 1699, Transylvania was ceded to the Emperor of Ger- 
many, and a barrier was raised against Mohammedan invasion. 

The Russians, from the time of Peter the Great, looked with 
great jealousy on the power of the sultan, and several wars were 
the result. No Russian sovereign desired the humiliation of the 
Porte more than Catharine II. A bloody contest ensued, signalized 
by the victories of Gallitzin, Suwarrow, Romanzoff, and Orloff, 
by which Turkey became a second class power, no longer feared 
by the European states. 

From the peace of Carlovitz, the decline of the Ottoman empire 
has been gradual, but marked, owing to the indifference of the 
Turks to all modern improvements, f and a sluggish, conservative 
policy, hostile to progress, and sceptical of civilization. The 
Turks have ever been bigoted Mohammedans, and hostile to Eu- 
ropean influences. The Oriental dress has been preserved in Con- 
stantinople, and all the manners and customs of the people are 
similar to what they were in Asia several centuries ago. 

One of the peculiarities of the Turkish government, in the most 
flourishing period of its history, was the institution of the Janiza- 
ries — a guard of soldiers, to whom was intrusted the guardianship 
35* 



414 TURKISH INSTITUTIONS. [CHAP. XXVI. 

of the sultan, and the* protection of his capital. When warlike 
and able princes were seated on the throne, this institution proved 
a great support to the government ; but when the reins were held 
by effeminate princes, the Janizaries, like the Prsetorian Guards of 
Rome, acquired an undue ascendency, and even deposed the mon- 
archs whom they were bound to obey. They were insolent, extor- 
tionate, and extravagant, and became a great burden to the state. 
At first they were brave and resolute ; but they gradually lost their 
skill and their courage, were uniformly beaten in the later wars 
with the Russians, and retained nothing of the soldier but the 
name. Mahmoud II., in our own time, succeeded in dissolving 
this dangerous body, and in introducing European tactics into his 
army. 

The Turkish institutions have reference chiefly to the military 
character of the nation. All Mussulmans, in the eye of the law, are 
soldiers, to whom the extension of the empire and the propagation 
of their faith were the avowed objects of warfare. They may be 
regarded, wherever they have conquered, as military colonists, 
exercising great tyranny, and treating all vanquished subjects with 
contempt. The government has ever been a pure despotism, and 
both the executive and legislative authorities have been vested in 
the sultan. He is the sole fountain of honor ; for, in Turkey, 
birth confers no privilege. His actions are regarded as prescribed 
by an inevitable fate, and his subjects suffer with resignation. The 
evils of despotism are aggravated by the ignorance and effeminacy 
of those to whom power is intrusted, although the grand vizier, 
who is the prime minister of the empire, is generally a man of 
great experience and talent. All the laws of the country are 
founded upon the precepts of the Koran, the example of Moham- 
med, the precepts of the four first caliphs, and the decision of 
learned doctors upon disputed cases. Justice is administered 
promptly, but without much regard to equity or mercy ; and the 
course of the grand vizier is generally marked with blood. The 
character of the people partakes of the nature of their govern- 
ment, religion, and climate. They are arrogant, ignorant, and 
austere ; passing from devotion to obscenity ; fastidiously abste- 
mious in some things, and grossly sensual in others. They have 
cherished the virtues of hospitality, and are fond of conversation ; 



CHAP. XXVI.] TURKISH CHARACTER. 415 

but their domestic life is spent in voluptuous idleness, and is dull 
and insipid compared with that of Europeans. But the Turks have 
degenerated. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they were 
simple, brave, and religious. They founded an immense empire 
on the ruins of Asiatic monarchies, and filled the world with the 
terror of their arms. For two hundred years their power has been 
retrograding, and there is much reason now to believe that a total 
eclipse of their glory is soon to take place. 



References. — See Knolle's History of Turkey. Eton's Survey of the 
Turkish Empire. Upham's History of the Ottoman Empire. Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica. Heeren's Modern History. Madden's Travels in 
Turkey. Russell's Modern Europe. Life of Catharine H. 



416 MILITARY SUCCESSES IN AMERICA. [CHAP. XXVII. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

REIGN OF J GEORGE III. TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF 
WILLIAM PITT. 

Great subjects were discussed in England, and great events 
happened in America, during the latter years of the reigns of Fred- 
eric II., Catharine II., and Maria Theresa. These now demand 
attention. 

George III. ascended the throne of Great Britain at a period of 
unparalleled prosperity, when the English arms were victorious 
in all parts of the world, and when commerce and the arts had 
greatly enriched his country and strengthened its political impor- 
tance. By the peace of Paris, (1763,) the dominions of George 
III. were enlarged, and the country over which he reigned was 
the most powerful in Europe. 

Mr. George Grenville succeeded the Earl of Bute as the prime 
minister of the king, and he was chiefly assisted by the Earls of 
Egremont and Halifax. His administration was signalized by the 
prosecution of Wilkes, and by schemes for the taxation of the 
American colonies. 

Mr. Wilkes was a member of parliament, but a man of ruined 
fortunes and profligate morals. As his circumstances were des- 
perate, he applied to the ministry for some post of emolument ; but 
his application was rejected. Failure enraged him, and he swore 
revenge, and resolved to libel the ministers, under the pretext of 
exercising the liberty of the press. He was editor of the North 
Briton, a periodical publication of some talent, but more bitterness. 
In the forty-fifth number, he assailed the king, charging him with 
a direct falsehood. The charge should have been dismissed with 
contempt ; for it was against the dignity of the government to 
refute an infamous slander. But, in an evil hour, it was thought 
expedient to vindicate the honor of the sovereign ; and a warrant 
was therefore issued against the editor, publisher, and printer of 
the publication. The officers of the law entered Wilkes's house 



CHAP. XXVII.] PROSECUTION OF "WILKES. 417 

late one evening, seized his papers, and committed him to the 
Tower. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus, in consequence of 
which he was brought up to Westminster Hall. Being a member 
of parliament, and a man of considerable abilities and influence, 
his case attracted attention. The judges decided that his arrest 
was illegal, since a member of parliament could not be imprisoned 
except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. He had not 
committed any of these crimes, for a libel had only a tendency to 
disturb the peace. Still, had he been a private person, his im- 
prisonment would have been legal ; but being unconstitutional, he 
was discharged. Lord Chief Justice Pratt gained great popularity 
by his charge in favor of the liberation of Wilkes, and ever nobly 
defended constitutional liberty. He is better known as Lord Cam- 
den, the able lord chancellor and statesman during a succeeding 
administration, and one of the greatest lawyers England has 
produced, ranking with Lord Hardwicke, Lord Ellenborough, and 
Lord Eldon. 

After the discharge of Wilkes, the attorney-general was then 
ordered to commence a state prosecution, and he was arraigned 
at the bar of the House of Commons. It was voted, by a great 
majority, that the forty-fifth number of the North Briton was a 
scandalous and seditious libel, and tending to excite traitorous 
insurrections. It was further voted that the paper should be 
burned by the common hangman. Wilkes then complained to the 
House of a breach of privilege, which complaint, being regular, 
was considered. But the Commons decided that the privilege of 
parliament does not extend to a libel, which resolution was against 
the decision of the Court of Common Pleas, and the precedents upon 
record in their own journals. However scandalous and vulgar the 
vituperation of Wilkes, and especially disgraceful in a member of 
parliament, still his prosecution was an attack on the constitution. 
Wilkes was convicted on what is called a general loarrant, which, 
if often resorted to, would be fatal to the liberties of the people. 
Many, who strongly disliked the libeller, still defended him in this 
instance, among whom were Pitt, Beckford, Legge, Yorke, and 
Sir George Saville. But party spirit and detestation of Wilkes 
triumphed over the constitution, and the liberties of members of 
parliament were abridged even by themselves. But Wilkes was 



418 CHURCHILL. [CHAP. XXVII. 

not discouraged, and immediately brought an action, in Westmin- 
ster Hall, against the Earl of Halifax, the secretary of state, for 
seizing his papers, and, after a hearing of fifteen hours, before 
Lord Chief Justice Pratt and a special jury, obtained a verdict in 
his favor of one thousand pounds damages and costs. 

While the Commons were prosecuting Wilkes for a libel, the 
Lords also continued the prosecution. Wilkes, in conjunction with 
Potter, a dissipated son of Archbishop Potter, during some of their 
bacchanalian revels, had written a blasphemous and obscene poem, 
after the model of Pope's Essay on Man, called An Essay on 
Woman. The satire was not published, but a few copies of it were 
printed privately for the authors. Lord Sandwich had contrived 
to secure a copy of it, and read it before the House ; and the Lords, 
indignant and disgusted, voted an address to the king to institute a 
prosecution against the author. The Lords, by so doing, departed 
from the dignity of their order, and their ordinary functions, and 
their persecution served to strengthen, instead of weaken, the 
cause of Wilkes. 

Associated with him, in his writings and his revels, was the 
poet Churchill, a clergyman of the Establishment, but as open 
a contemner of decency as Wilkes himself. For some years, his 
poetry had proved as bad as his sermons, his time being spent in 
low dissipation. An ill-natured criticism on his writings called 
forth his energies, and he started, all at once, a giant in numbers, 
with all the fire of Dryden and all the harmony of Pope. Imagi- 
nation, wit, strength, and sense, were crowded into his compo- 
sitions ; but he was careless of both matter and manner, and wrote 
just what came in his way. "This bacchanalian priest," says 
Horace Walpole, " now mouthing patriotism, and now venting 
libertinism, the scourge of bad men, and scarce better than the 
worst, debauching wives, and protecting his gown by the weight 
of his fist, engaged with Wilkes in his war on the Scots, and set 
himself up as the Hercules that was to cleanse the state and 
punish its oppressors. And true it is, the storm that saved us 
was raised in taverns and night-cellars ; so much more effectual 
were the orgies of Churchill and Wilkes than the dagger of Cato 
and Brutus. Earl Temple joined them in mischief and dissipa- 
tion, and whispered where they might find torches, though he 



chap, xxvn.] grafton's administration. 419 

took care never to be seen to light one himself. This triumvirate 
has even made me reflect that nations are most commonly saved by 
the worst men in them. The virtuous are too scrupulous to go 
the lengths which are necessary to rouse the people against their 
tyrants." 

The ferment created by the prosecution of Wilkes led to the 
resignation of Mr. Grenville, in 1765, and the Marquis of Rock- 
ingham succeeded him as head of the administration. He con- 
tinued, however, the prosecution. He retained his place hut a 
few months, and was succeeded by the Duke of Grafton, the 
object of such virulent invective in the Letters of Junius, a work 
without elevation of sentiment, without any appeal to generous 
principle, without recognition of the eternal laws of justice, and 
without truthfulness, and yet a work which produced a great sen- 
sation, and is to this day regarded as a masterpiece of savage 
and unscrupulous sarcasm- The Duke of Grafton had the same 
views as his predecessor respecting Wilkes, who had the audacity, 
notwithstanding the sentence of outlawry which had been passed 
against him, to return from Paris, to which he had, for a time, 
retired, and to appear publicly at Guildhall, and offer himself 
as a candidate for the city of London. He was contemptuously 
rejected, but succeeded in being elected as member for Middlesex 
county. 

Mr. Wilkes, however, recognizing the outlawry that had been 
passed against him, surrendered himself to the jurisdiction of the 
Court of the King's Bench, which was then presided over by Lord 
Mansfield. This great lawyer and jurist confirmed the verdicts 
against him, and sentenced him to pay a fine of one thousand 
pounds, to suffer two years' imprisonment, and to find security for 
good behavior for seven years. This sentence was odious and 
severe, and the more unjustifiable in view of the arbitrary and 
unprecedented alteration of the records on the very night pre- 
ceding the trial. 

The multitude, enraged, rescued their idol from the officers of 
the law, as they were conducting him to prison, and carried him 
with triumph through the city ; but, through his entreaties, they 
were prevailed upon to abstain from further acts of outrage. Mr. 
Wilkes again surrendered himself, and was confined in prison. 



420 POPULARITY OF "WILKES. [CHAP. XXVII. 

When the Commons met, Wilkes was again expelled, in order to 
satisfy the vengeance of the court. But the electors of Middlesex 
again returned him to parliament, and the Commons voted that, 
being once expelled, he was incapable of sitting, even if elected, 
in the same parliament. The electors of Middlesex, equally de- 
termined with the Commons, chose him, for a third time, their 
representative ; and the election, for the third time, was declared 
void by the commons. In order to terminate the contest, Colonel 
Lutterell, a member of the House, vacated his seat, and offered 
himself a candidate for Middlesex. He received two hundred and 
ninety-six votes, and Wilkes twelve hundred and forty-three, but 
Lutterell was declared duly elected by the Commons, and took 
his seat for Middlesex. 

This decision threw the whole nation into a ferment, and was 
plainly an outrage on the freedom of elections ; and it was so 
considered by some of the most eminent men in England, even 
by those who despised the character of Wilkes. Lord Chatham, 
from his seat, declared " that the laws were despised, trampled 
upon, destroyed ; those laws which had been made T}y the stern 
virtues of our ancestors, those iron barons of old, to whose spirit 
in the hour of contest, and to whose fortitude in the triumph of 
victory, the silken barons of this day owe all their honors and 
security." 

Mr. Wilkes subsequently triumphed ; the Commons grew weaiy 
of a contest which brought no advantage and much ignominy, 
and the prosecution was dropped ; but not until the subject of it 
had been made Lord Mayor of London. From 1768 to 1772, he 
was the sole unrivalled political idol of the people, who lavished 
on him all in their power to bestow. They subscribed twenty 
thousand pounds for the payment of his debts, besides gifts 
of plate, wine, and household goods. Every wall bore his name, 
and every window his picture. In china, bronze, or marble, he 
stood upon the chimney-pieces of half the houses in London, and 
he swung from the sign-board of every village, and every great 
road in the environs of the metropolis. In 1770 he was dis- 
charged from his imprisonment, in 1771 was permitted to take 
his seat, and elected mayor. From 1776, his popularity declined, 
and he became involved in pecuniary difficulties. He, however, 



CHAP. XXVII.] TAXATION OF THE COLONIES. 421 

emerged from them, and enjoyed a quiet office until his death, 
(1797.) He was a patriot from accident, and not from principle, 
and corrupt in his morals ; but he was a gentleman of elegant 
manners and cultivated taste. He was the most popular political 
character ever known in England ; and his name, at one time, 
was sufficient to blow up the flames of sedition, and excite the lower 
orders to acts of violence bordering on madness. 

During his prosecution, important events occurred, of greater 
moment to the world. The disputes about the taxation of America 
led to the establishment of a new republic, whose extent and gran- 
deur have never been equalled, and whose future greatness cannot 
well be exaggerated. 

These disputes commenced during the administration of George 
Grenville. The proposal to tax the American colonies had been 
before proposed to Sir Robert Walpole, but this prudent and saga- 
cious minister dared not run the risk. Mr. Grenville was not, 
however, daunted by the difficulties and dangers which the more 
able Walpole regarded. In order to lighten the burden which 
resulted from the ruinous wars of Pitt, the minister proposed to 
raise a revenue from the colonies. The project pleased the house, 
and the Stamp Duties were imposed. It is true that the tax was a 
light one, and was so regarded by Mr. Grenville ; but he intended 
it as a precedent ; he was resolved to raise a revenue from the 
colonies sufficiently great to lighten the public burden. He 
regarded the colonists as subjects of the King of Great Britain, in 
every sense of the word; and, since they received protection 
from the government, they were bound to contribute to its 
support. 

But the colonists, now scattered along the coast from Maine to 
Georgia, took other views. They maintained that, though subject 
in some degree to English legislation, they could not be taxed, any 
more than other subjects of Great Britain, without their consent. 
They were willing to be ruled in accordance with those royal 
charters which had, at different times, been given them. They 
were even willing to assist the mother country, which they loved 
and revered, and with which were connected their brightest and 
most cherished associations, in expelling its enemies from adjoining 
territories, and to fight battles in its defence. They were willing 
36 



422 INDIGNATION OF THE COLONIES. [CHAP. XXVII. 

to receive the literature, the religion, the fashions, and the opinions 
of their brethren in England. But they looked upon the soil 
which they cultivated in the wilderness with so many difficulties, 
hardships, and dangers, as their own, and believed that they were 
bound to raise taxes only to defend the soil, and promote good 
government, religion, and morality in their midst. But they could 
not understand why they were bound to pay taxes to support Eng- 
glish wars on the continent of Europe. It was for their children, 
and for the sacred privilege of religious liberty, that they had 
originally left the mother country. It was only for themselves and 
their children that they felt bound to labor. They sought no 
political influence in England. They did not wish to control elec- 
tions, or regulate the finances, or interfere with the projects of 
military aggrandizement. They were not represented in the 
English parliament, and they composed, politically speaking, no 
part of the English nation. Great, therefore, was their indigna- 
tion, when they learned that the English government was inter- 
fering with their chartered rights, and designed to raise a revenue 
from them to lighten taxes at home, merely to support the govern- 
ment in foolish wars. If they could be taxed, without their con- 
sent, in any thing, they could be taxed without limit ; and they 
would be in danger of becoming mere slaves of the mother 
country, and be bound to labor for English aggrandizement. On 
one point they insisted with peculiar earnestness — that taxation, 
in a free country, without a representation of interests in parlia- 
ment, was an outrage. It was on account of this arbitrary taxa- 
tion that Charles I. lost his crown, and the second revolution was 
effected, which placed the house of Hanover on the throne. The 
colonies felt that, if the subjects of the king at home were justified 
in resisting unlawful taxes, they surely, on another continent, and 
without a representation, had a right to do so also ; that, if they 
were to be taxed without their consent, they would be in a worse 
condition than even the people of Ireland; would be in the condi- 
tion of a conquered people, without the protection which even a 
conquered country enjoyed. Hence they remonstrated, and pre- 
pared themselves for resistance. 

The English government was so blinded as not to perceive or 
feel the force of the reasoning of the colonists, and obstinately 



CHAP. XXVII.] THE STAMP ACT. 423 

resolved fo resort to measures which, with a free and spirited 
people, must necessarily lead to violence and strife. The House 
of Commons would not even hear '. the reports of the colonial 
agents, but proceeded, with strange infatuation and obstinate big- 
otry, to impose the Stamp Act, (1765.) There were some, how- 
ever, who perceived its folly and injustice. General Conway pro- 
tested against the assumed right of the government, and Colonel 
Barre, a speaker of great eminence, exclaimed, in reply to the 
speech of Charles Townshend, who styled the colonies " children 
planted by our care, and nourished by our indulgence," — " They 
planted by your care ! — No ! your oppressions planted them in 
America ; they fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated wil- 
derness, exposed to all the hardships to which human nature is 
liable ! They nourished by your indulgence ! — No ! they grew 
by your neglect ; your care of them was displayed in sending 
persons to govern them who were the deputies of deputies of 
ministers — men whose behavior, on many occasions, has caused 
the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them ; men who 
have been promoted to the highest seats of justice in a foreign 
country, in order to escape being brought to the bar of a court of 
justice in their own." Mr. Pitt opposed the fatal policy of Grenville 
with singular eloquence ; by arguments which went beyond acts 
of parliament ; by an appeal to the natural reason ; and by recog- 
nition of the great, inalienable principles of liberty. He maintained 
that the House had no right to lay an internal tax upon America, 
that country not being represented. Burke, too, then a new 
speaker, raised his voice against the folly and injustice of taxing 
the colonies; but it was in vain. The commons were bent on 
imposing the Stamp Act. 

But the passage of this act created great disturbances in Amer- 
ica, and was every where regarded as the beginning of great 
calamities. Throughout the colonies there was a general combi- 
nation to resist the stamp duty ; and it was resolved to purchase 
no English manufactures, and to prevent the adoption of stamped 
paper. 

Such violent and unexpected opposition embarrassed the English 
ministry ; which, in addition to the difficulties attending the prose- 
cution of Wilkes, led to the retirement of Grenville, who was 



424 LORD CHATHAM. [CHAP. XXVII. 

succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham. During his short 
administration, the Stamp Act was repealed, although the Commons 
still insisted on their right to tax America. The joy which this 
repeal created in the colonies was unbounded ; and the speech of 
Pitt, who proposed the repeal, and defended it with unprecedented 
eloquence, was every where read with enthusiasm, and served to 
strengthen the conviction, among the leading men in the colonies, 
that their cause was right. Lord Rockingham did not long remain 
at the head of the government, and was succeeded by the Duke 
of Grafton ; although Mr. Pitt, recently created Earl of Chatham, 
was virtually the prime minister. Lord Rockingham retired from 
office with a high character for pure and disinterested patriotism, 
and without securing place, pension, or reversion, to himself or to 
any of his adherents. 

The elevation of Lord Chatham to the peerage destroyed his 
popularity and weakened his power. No man ever made a greater 
mistake than he did in consenting to an apparent elevation. He 
had long been known and designated as the Great Commoner. 
The people were proud of him, and, as a commoner, he could 
have ruled the nation, in spite of all opposition. No other man 
could have averted the national calamities. But, as a peer, he no 
longer belonged to the people, and the people lost confidence in 
him, and abandoned him. What he gained in dignity he lost in 
power and popularity. The people now compared him with Lord 
Bath, and he became the object of universal calumny. 

And Chatham felt the change which had taken place in the 
nation. He had ever loved and courted popularity, and that was 
the source of his power. He now lost his spirits, and interested 
himself but little in public affairs. He relapsed into a state of 
indolence and apathy. He remained only the shadow of a 
mighty name ; and, sequestered in the groves of his family resi- 
dence, ceased to be mentioned by the public. He became 
melancholy, nervous, and unfit for business. Nor could he be 
induced to attend a cabinet council, even on the most pressing 
occasions. He pretended to be ill, and would not hold confer- 
ence with his colleagues. Nor did he have the influence with the 
king which he had a right to expect. Being no longer beloved by 
the people, he was no longer feared by the king. He was like 



CHAP. XXVII.] ADBIINISTRATION OF LORD NORTH. 425 

Samson when deprived of his locks — without strength ; for his 
strength lay in the confidence and affections of the nation. He 
opposed his colleagues in their resolution to impose new taxes on 
America, but his counsels were disregarded. 

These taxes were in the shape of duties on glass, paper, lead, 
and painters' colors, from which no considerable revenue could be 
gained, and much discontent would inevitably result. When the 
news of this new taxation reached the colonies, it destroyed all the 
cheerfulness which the repeal of the Stamp Act had caused. Sul- 
lenness and gloom returned. Trust in parliament was diminished. 
New combinations of opposition were organized, and the news- 
papers teemed with invective. 

In the midst of these disturbances, Lord Chatham resigned the 
Privy Seal, the office he had selected, and retired from the admin- 
istration, (1768.) 

In 1770, the Duke of Grafton also resigned his office as first 
lord of the treasury, chiefly in consequence of the increasing 
difficulties with America ; and Lord North, who had been two 
years chancellor of the exchequer, took his place. He was an 
amiable and accomplished nobleman, and had many personal 
friends, and few personal enemies ; but he was unfit to manage 
the helm of state in the approaching storm. 

It was his misfortune to be minister in the most unsettled and 
revolutionary times, and to misunderstand not merely the spirit of 
the age, but the character and circumstances of the American 
colonies. George III., with singular obstinacy and blindness, sus- 
tained the minister against all opposition ; and under his adminis- 
tration the American war was carried on, which ended so disas- 
trously to the mother country. 

As this great and eventful war will be the subject of the next 
chapter, the remaining events of interest, connected with the 
domestic history of England, will be first presented. 

The most important of these were the discontents of the Irish. 

As early as 1762, associations of the peasantry were formed 
with a view to political reforms and changes, and these popular 
demonstrations of the discontented have ever since marked the 
history of the Irish nation — ever poor, ever oppressed, ever on the 
eve of rebellion. 

36* 



426 FUNCTIONS OF THE PARLIAMENT. [CHAP. XXVII. 

The first circumstance, however, after the accession of George 
III., which claims particular notice, was the passing of the Octen- 
nial Bill, in 1788. The Irish parliament, unlike the English, con- 
tinued in existence during the life of the sovereign. In 1761, an 
attempt had been made by the patriotic party to limit its duration, 
and to place it upon the same footing as the parliament of Eng- 
land ; but this did not succeed. Lord Townshend, at this period, 
was lord lieutenant, and it was the great object of his government 
to break the power of the Irish aristocracy, and to take out of their 
hands the distribution of pensions and places, which hitherto had, 
from motives of policy, been allowed them. He succeeded in his 
object, though by unjustifiable means, and the British government 
became the source of all honor and emolument. During his 
administration, some disturbances broke out in Ulster, in conse- 
quence of the system which then prevailed of letting land on fines. 
As a great majority of the peasantry and small farmers were 
unable to pay these fines, and were consequently deprived of their 
farms, they became desperate, and committed violent outrages on 
those who had taken their lands. Government was obliged to 
resort to military force, and many distressed people were driven 
to America for subsistence. To Ireland there appeared no chance 
of breaking the thraldom which England in other respects also 
exercised, when the American war broke out. This immediately 
changed the language and current of the British government in 
reference to Ireland ; proposals were made favorable to Irish com- 
merce ; and some penal statutes against Catholics were annulled. 
Still the patriots of Ireland aimed at much greater privileges than 
had as yet been granted, and the means to secure these were 
apparent. England had drawn from Ireland nearly all the regular 
forces, in order to send them to America, and the sea-coast of 
Ireland was exposed to invasion. In consequence of the defence- 
less state of the country, the inhabitants of the town of Belfast, in 
1779, entered into armed associations to defend themselves in 
case of necessity. This gave rise to a system of volunteers, 
which soon was extended over the island. The Irish now began 
to feel their strength ; and even Lord North admitted, in the 
House of Commons, the necessity of granting to them still 
greater privileges, and carried a bill through parliament, which 



CHAP. XXVII.] IRISH DISCONTENTS. 427 

removed some grievous commercial restrictions, But the Irish 
looked to greater objects, and especially since Lord North, in order 
to carry his bill, represented it as a boon resumable at pleasure, 
rather than as a right to which the Irish were properly entitled. 
This bill, therefore, instead of quieting the patriots, led to a desire 
for an independent parliament of their own. A union was formed 
of volunteers to secure this end, not composed of the ignorant 
peasantiy, but of all classes, at the head of which was the Duke 
of Leinster himself. In 1781, this association of volunteers had 
a force of fifty thousand disciplined men ; and it moreover formed 
committees of correspondence, which naturally alarmed the British 
government. 

These and other disturbances, added to the disasters in Amer- 
ica, induced the House Of Commons to pass censure on Lord 
North and his colleague, as incapable of managing the helm of 
state. The king, therefore, was compelled to dismiss his minis- 
ters, whose administration had proved the most disastrous in Brit- 
ish annals. Lord North, however, had uncommon difficulties to 
contend with, and might have governed the nation with honor in 
ordinary times. He resigned in 1782, four years after the death 
of Chatham, and the Marquis of Rockingham, a second time, was 
placed at the head of the government. Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke 
also obtained places, and the Whigs were once more triumphant. 

The attention of the new ministry was imperatively demanded 
by the discontents in Ireland, and important concessions were 
made. Mr. Grattan moved an address to the king, which was 
unanimously carried in both Houses, in which it was declared that 
" the crown of Ireland was inseparably annexed to the crown of 
Great Britain ; but that the kingdom of Ireland was a distinct 
kingdom, with a parliament of her own, the sole legislature there- 
of; that in this right they conceived the very essence of their 
liberty to exist ; that in behalf of all the people of Ireland, they 
claimed this as their birthright, and could not relinquish it but 
with their lives ; that they had a high veneration for the British 
character ; and that, in sharing the freedom of England, it was 
their determination to share also her fate, and to stand and fall with 
the British nation." The new lord lieutenant, the Duke of Port- 
land, assured the Irish parliament that the British legislature had 



428 PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION. [CHAP. XXVII. 

resolved to remove the cause of discontent, and a law was actually 
passed which placed the Irish parliament on the same footing as 
that of England. Acts were also passed for the right of habeas 
corpus, and for the independence of the judges. 

The volunteers, having accomplished the objects which they 
originally contemplated, did not, however, disband, but now 
directed their efforts to a reform in parliament. But the House 
of Commons rejected the proposition offered by Mr. Flood, and 
the convention, appointed by the volunteers, indefinitely adjourned 
without persevering, as it should have done. The volunteer sys- 
tem soon after declined. 

The cause of parliamentary reform, though no longer supported 
by the volunteers in their associate character, was not deserted by 
the people, or by their advocates in parliament. Among these ad- 
vocates was William Pitt himself. But in 1783, he became prime 
minister, and changed his opinions. 

But before the administration of Pitt can be presented, an event 
in the domestic history of England must be alluded to, which took 
place during the administration of Lord North. This was the 
Protestant Association, headed by Lord George Gordon, and the 
riots to which it led. 

In 1788, parliament had passed an act relieving Roman Catho- 
lics from some of the heavy penalties inflicted on them in the 
preceding century. It relieved bishops, priests, and schoolmasters 
from prosecution and imprisonment, gave security to the rights 
of inheritance, and permission to purchase lands on fee simple. 
This act of toleration was generally opposed in England ; but 
the fanatical spirit of Presbyterianism in Scotland was excited in 
view of this reasonable indulgence, to a large body of men, of the 
rights of conscience and civil liberty. On the bare rumor of the 
intended indulgence, great tumults took place in Edinburgh and 
Glasgow ; the Roman Catholic chapel was destroyed, and the houses 
of the principal Catholics were attacked and plundered. Nor did 
the magistracy check or punish these disorders with any spirit, but 
secretly favored the rioters. Encouraged by the indifference of 
the magistrates, the fanatics formed themselves into a society called 
the Protestant Association, to oppose any remission of the present 
unjust laws ; and of. this association Lord George Gordon was 



CHAP. XXVII.] LORD GEORGE GORDON'S RIOTS. 429 

chosen president. He was the son of the Duke of Gordon, be- 
longing to one of the most ancient of the Scottish nobility, but a 
man, in the highest degree wild and fanatical. He was also 
member of parliament, and opposed the views of the most enlight- 
ened statesmen of his time, and with an extravagance which led 
to the belief that he was insane. He calumniated the king, defied 
the parliament, and boasted of the number of his adherents. He 
pretended that he had, in Scotland, one hundred and sixty thousand 
men at his command, who would cut off the king's head, if he did 
not keep his coronation oath. The enthusiasm of the Scotch soon 
spread to the English ; and, throughout the country, associations 
were affiliated with the parent societies in London and Edinburgh, 
of both of which Lord Gordon was president. At Coachmakers' 
Hall he assembled his adherents ; and, in an incendiary harangue, 
inflamed the minds of an immense audience in regard to the 
Church of Rome, with the usual invectives respecting its idolatry 
and corruption. He urged them to violent courses, as the only 
way to stop the torrent of Catholicism which was desolating the 
land. Soon after, this association assembled at St. George's Fields, 
to the astonishing number of fifty thousand people, marshalled in 
separate bands, with blue cockades ; and this immense rabble pro- 
ceeded through the city of London to the House of Parliament, 
preceded by a man carrying a petition signed by twelve hundred 
thousand names. The rabble took possession of the lobby of the 
house, making the old palace ring with their passionate cries of 
" No popery ! no popery ! " This mob was harangued by Lord 
Gordon himself, in the lobby of the house, while the matter was 
discussed among the members. The military were drawn out, and 
the mob was dispersed for a time, but soon assembled again, and 
became still more alarming. Houses were plundered, churches 
were entered, and the city set on fire in thirty-six different places. 
The people were obliged to chalk on their houses " No popery," and 
pay contributions to prevent their being sacked. The prisons were 
emptied of both felons and debtors. Lord Mansfield's splendid 
residence was destroyed, together with his pictures, furniture, and 
invaluable law library. Martial law was finally proclaimed — the 
last resort in cases of rebellion, and never resorted to but in 
extreme cases ; and the military did what magistrates could not 



430 PARLIAMENTARY REFORMS. [CHAP. XXVII. 

do — restored order and law. Had not the city been decreed to 
be in a state of rebellion, the rioters would have taken the bank, 
which they had already attacked. Five hundred persons were 
killed in the riot, and Lord George Gordon was committed to the 
Tower. He, however, escaped conviction, through the extraordi- 
nary talents of his counsel, Mr. Erskine and Mr. Kenyon ; but 
one hundred others were capitally convicted. This disgraceful 
riot opened the eyes of the people to the horrors of popular insur- 
rection, and perhaps prevented a revolution in England, when 
other questions, of more practical importance, agitated the nation. 

But no reform of importance took place until the administration 
of William Pitt. Mr. Burke attempted to secure some economical 
retrenchments, which were strongly opposed. But what was a 
retrenchment of two hundred thousand pounds a year, when com- 
pared with the vast expenditures of the British armies in America 
and in India ? But though the reforms which Burke projected were 
not radical or important, they contributed to raise his popularity 
with the people, who were more annoyed by the useless offices 
connected with the king's household, than by the expenditure of 
millions in war. At first, his scheme received considerable atten- 
tion, and the members listened to his propositions so long as they 
were abstract and general. But when he proceeded to specific 
reforms, they no longer regarded his voice, and he was obliged to 
abandon his task as hopeless. William Pitt made his first speech 
in the debate which Burke had excited, and argued in favor of 
retrenchment with the eloquence of his father, but with more 
method and clearness. The bill was lost, but Burke finally suc- 
ceeded in carrying his measures ; and the offices of the master of 
the hariers, the master of the staghounds, the clerk of the green 
cloth, and some other unimportant sinecures, were abolished. 

The first attempt at that great representative reform which 
afterwards convulsed the nation, was made by William Pitt. He 
brought forward two resolutions, to prevent bribery at elections, 
and secure a more equitable representation. But he did not suc- 
ceed ; and Pitt himself, when his cause was advocated by men of 
a different spirit, — men inflamed by revolutionary principles, — 
changed his course, and opposed parliamentary reform with more 
ardor than he had at first advocated it. But parliamentary reform 



CHAP. XXVII.] REFORM QUESTIONS. 431 

did not become an object of absorbing interest until the times of 
Henry Brougham and Lord John Russell. 

No other great events were sufficiently prominent to be here 
alluded to, until the ministry of William Pitt. The American 
Revolution first demands attention. ' . 



References. — Belsham's History of the Reign of George III. Wal- 
pole's Memoir of the same reign. Holt's Private and Domestic Life of 
George IH. Lord Brougham's Statesmen of the Reign of George III. 
Smyth's Lectures. Thackeray's Life of the Earl of Chatham. Corre- 
spondence of the Earl of Chatham. Annual Register, from 1765 to 1775. 
Debret's Parliamentary Debates. Stephens' Life of Home Tooke. Camp- 
bell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Macaulay's Essay on Chatham. 
Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents. 



432 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

4 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

The American Revolution, if contemplated in view of its ulti- 
mate as well as immediate consequences, is doubtless the greatest 
event of modern times. Its importance was not fully appreciated 
when it took place, but still excited a great interest throughout the 
civilized world. It was the main subject which engrossed the 
attention and called out the energies of British statesmen, during 
the administration of Lord North. In America, of course, all 
other subjects were trivial in comparison with it. The contest is 
memorable for the struggles of heroes, for the development of 
unknown energies, for the establishment of a new western empire, 
for the triumph of the cause of liberty, and for the moral effects 
which resulted, even in other countries, from the examples of 
patriots who preferred the glory and honor of their country to 
their own aggrandizement. 

The causes of the struggle have been already alluded to in the 
selfishness and folly of British statesmen, who sought to relieve the 
burdens of the English people by taxing the colonies. The colo- 
nies were doubtless regarded by the British parliament without 
proper affection or consideration ; somewhat in the light of a 
conquered nation, from which England might derive mercantile 
advantage. The colonies were not ruled in a spirit of conciliation, 
nor were the American people fully appreciated. Some, perhaps, 
like Chatham and Burke, may have' known the virtues and the 
power of the colonial population, and may have had some glimpse 
of the glory and greatness to which America was destined. But 
they composed but a small minority of the nation, and their advice 
and remonstrances were generally disregarded. 

Serious disturbances did not take place until Lord North com- 
menced his unfortunate administration, (1770.) Although the 
colonies were then resolved not to submit, to unlawful taxation, 
and to an oppressive government, independence was not contem- 



CHAP. XXVIII.] CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 433 

plated. Conciliatory measures, if they had been at that time 
adopted, probably would have deferred the Revolution. But the 
contest must have occurred, at a later date ; for nothing, in the 
ordinary course of events, could have prevented the ultimate inde- 
pendence of the colonies. Their rapid growth, the extent of the 
country in which settlements were made, its distance from England, 
the spirit of liberty which animated the people, their general impa- 
tience, under foreign restraint, and the splendid prospects of future 
greatness which were open to their eyes, must have led to a rup- 
ture with the mother country at no distant time. 

The colonies, at the commencement of their difficulties, may 
have exaggerated their means of resistance, but not their future 
greatness. All of them, from New Hampshire to Georgia, were 
animated by a spirit of liberty which no misfortunes- could crush. 
A large majority of the people were willing to incur the dangers 
incident to revolution, not for themselves merely, but for the sake 
of their posterity, and for the sacred cause of liberty. They felt 
that their cause was just, and that Providence would protect and 
aid them in their defence. 

A minute detail of the events of the American Revolution, of 
course, cannot be expected in a history like this. Only the more 
prominent events can be alluded to. The student is supposed to 
be familiar with the details of the conflict, which are to be read in 
the works of numerous American authors. 

Lord North, at the commencement of his administration, repealed 
the obnoxious duties which had been imposed in 1767, but still 
retained the duty on tea, with a view chiefly to assert the suprem- 
acy of Great Britain, and her right to tax the colonies. This 
course of the minister cannot be regarded in any other light than 
that of the blindest infatuation. 

The imposition of the port duties, by Grenville, had fomented 
innumerable disturbances, and had led to universal discussion as 
to the nature and extent of parliamentary power. A distinction, 
at first, had been admitted between internaland external taxes; 
but it was soon asserted that Great Britain had no right to tax the 
colonies, either internally or externally. It was stated that the 
colonies had received charters, under the great seal, which had 
given them all the rights and privileges of Englishmen at home, 
37 



434 RIOTS AND DISTURBANCES. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

and therefore that they could not be taxed, except by their own 
consent ; that this consent had never been asked or granted ; that 
they were unrepresented in the imperial parliament ; and that the 
taxes which had been imposed by their own respective legislatures 
were, in many instances, greater than what were paid by the 
people of England — taxes too, incurred, to a great degree, to pre- 
serve the jurisdiction of Great Britain on the American continent. 
The colonies were every where exceedingly indignant with the 
course the mother country had pursued with reference to them. 
Patrick Henry, a Virginian, supported the cause of liberty with un- 
rivalled eloquence and power, as did John Adams, Josiah Quincy, Jr., 
James Otis, and other patriots in Massachusetts. Riots took place 
in Boston, Newport, and New York, and assemblies of citizens 
in various parts expressed an indignant and revolutionary spirit. 

The residence of the military at Boston was, moreover, the 
occasion of perpetual tumult. The people abused the soldiers, 
vilified them in newspapers, and insulted them in the streets. 
Mutual animosity was the result. Rancor and insults produced a 
riot, and the troops fired upon the people. So great was the dis- 
turbances, that the governor was reluctantly obliged to remove the 
military from the town. The General Court was then removed to 
Cambridge, but refused to enter upon business unless it were con- 
vened in Boston. Fresh disturbances followed. The governor 
quarrelled with the legislature, and a complete anarchy began to 
prevail. The public mind was inflamed by effigies, paintings, 
and incendiary articles in the newspapers. The parliament was 
represented as corrupt, the ministry as venal, the king as a tyrant, 
and England itself as a rotten, old, aristocratic structure, crumbling 
to pieces. The tide was so overwhelming in favor of resistance, 
that even moderate men were borne along in the current ; and 
those who kept aloof from the excitement were stigmatized as 
timid and selfish, and the enemies of their country. The courts 
of justice were virtually silenced, since juries disregarded the 
charges of the judges. Libels were unnoticed, and the rioters 
were unpunished. Smuggling was carried on to a great extent, 
and revenue officers were insulted in the discharge of their duties. 
Obnoxious persons were tarred and feathered, and exposed to 
public derision and scorn. In Providence, they burnt the revenue 



CHAP. XXVIII.] DUTY ON TEA. 435 

cutter, and committees were formed in the principal towns who 
fanned the flame of sedition. The committee in Boston, in 1773, 
framed a celebrated document, called the Bill of Rights, in which 
the authority of parliament to legislate for the colonies, in any re- 
spect, was denied, and in which the salaries decreed by the crown 
to the governor and judges were considered as a systematic attempt 
to enslave the land. 

The public discontents were further inflamed by the informa- 
tion which Dr. Franklin, then in London, afforded the colonies, 
and the advice he gave them to persevere, assuring them that, if 
they were firm, they had nothing to apprehend. Moreover, he 
got into his possession a copy of the letters of Governor Hutchin- 
sOn to the ministry, which he transmitted to the colonies, and 
which by them were made public. These letters were considered 
by the legislature of Massachusetts as unjust and libellous, and his 
recall was demanded. Resolutions, of an offensive character to 
the English, were every where passed, and all things indicated an 
approaching storm. The crisis was at hand. The outrage, in 
Boston harbor, of throwing overboard three hundred and forty-two 
chests of tea, which the East India Company had sent to America, 
consummated the difficulties, and induced the government to 
resort to more coercive measures. 

It was in the power of Lord North to terminate the difficulties 
with the colonies when the East India Company urged him to 
repeal the duty of threepence per pound on tea, and offered to 
pay sixpence per pound in lieu of it, as export duty, if permitted 
to import it into the colonies duty free. The company was in- 
duced to make this proposition in view of the great accumulation 
of tea in England ; but the government, more solicitous about the 
right than the revenue, would not consent. The colonists were 
equally determined to resist taxation, not on account of immediate 
burdens, but upon principle, and therefore resolved to prevent the 
landing of the tea. A multitude rushed to the wharf, and twenty 
persons, disguised as Indians, went on board the ships laden with 
it, staved the chests, and threw their contents into the sea. In 
New York and Philadelphia, as no persons could be found who 
would venture to receive the tea sent to those ports, the ships 
laden with it returned to England. 



436 PORT OF BOSTON CLOSED. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

The ministers of the 4 crown were especially indignant with the 
province of Massachusetts, which had always been foremost in 
resistance, and the scene of the greatest disorders, and therefore 
resolved to block up the port of Boston. Accordingly, in 1774, 
they introduced a bill to discontinue the lading and shipping of 
goods, wares, and merchandise at Boston, and to remove the cus- 
tom-house to Salem. The bill received the general approbation 
of the House, and passed by a great majority. 

No measure could possibly have been more impolitic. A large 
force should have been immediately sent to the colonies, to coerce 
them, before they had time to organize sufficient force to resist 
the mother country, or conciliatory measures should have been 
adopted. But the House was angry and infatuated, and the voice 
of wisdom was disregarded. 

Soon after, Lord North introduced another bill for the better 
government of the provinces, which went to subvert the charter 
of the colony, and to violate all the principles of liberty and 
justice. By this bill, the nomination of counsellors, judges, sheriffs, 
and magistrates of all kinds, was vested in the crown ; and these 
were also removable at pleasure. The ministers, in advocating the 
bill, urged the ground of necessity, the universal spirit of disaf- 
fection, which bordered on actual rebellion. The bill was carried, 
by a majority of two hundred and thirty-nine against sixty-four 
voices, May 2, 1774. 

The next step of the minister was to bring in a bill which pi'o- 
vided that, in case any person was indicted in Massachusetts for a 
capital offence, and that, if it should appear that a fair trial could 
not be had in the province, the prisoner might be sent to any 
other colony, or even to Great Britain itself, to be tried. This 
was insult added to injury, and met with vigorous resistance even in 
parliament itself. But it nevertheless passed through both Houses. 

When intelligence arrived concerning it, and of the other bills, 
a fire was kindled in the colonies not easily to be extinguished. 
There was scarcely a place which did not convene its assembly. 
Popular orators, in the public halls and in the churches, every 
where inflamed the people by incendiary discourses ; organizations 
were made to abstain from all commerce with the mother country ; 
and measures were adopted to assemble a General Congress, to 



CHAP. XXVIII.] MEETING OF CONGRESS. 437 

take into consideration the state of the country. People began to 
talk of defending their rights by the sword. Every where was 
heard the sound of the drum and the fife. All were fired by the 
spirit of liberty. Associations were formed for the purchase of 
arms and ammunition. Addresses were printed and circulated 
calling on the people to arm themselves, and resist unlawful en- 
croachment. All proceedings in the courts of justice were sus- 
pended. Jurors refused to take their oaths ; the reign of law 
ceased, and that of violence commenced. Governor Gage, who 
had succeeded Hutchinson, fortified Boston Neck, and cut off" the 
communication of the town with the country. 

In the mean time, the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, 
in which all the colonies were represented but Georgia. Congress 
passed resolutions approving the course of Massachusetts, and also 
a bill called a Declaration of Rights. It sent an address to the 
king, framed with great ability, in which it discussed the rights of 
the colonies, complained of the mismanagement of ministers, and 
besought a redress of the public evils. 

But this congress was considered by the government of Great 
Britain as an illegal body, and its petition was disregarded. But 
the ministers no longer regarded the difficulties as trifling, and 
sought to remedy them^ though not in the right way. The more 
profound of the English statesmen fully perceived the danger 
and importance of the crisis, and many of them took the side of 
liberty. Dean Tucker, who foresaw a long war, with all its 
expenses, urged, in a masterly treatise, the necessity of giving the 
Americans, at once, the liberty they sought. Others, who over- 
rated the importance of the colonies in a mercantile view, wished 
to retain them, but to adopt conciliatory measures. Lord Chat- 
ham put forth all the eloquence of which he was such a master, 
to arouse the ministers. He besought them to withdraw the troops 
from Boston. He showed the folly of metaphysical refinements 
about the right of taxation when a continent was in arms. He 
spoke of the means of enforcing thraldom as inefficient and ridic- 
ulous. Lord Camden sustained Chatham in the House of Lords, 
and declared, not as a philosopher, but as a constitutional lawyer, 
that England had no right to tax America. Mr. Burke moved a 
conciliatory measure in the House of Commons, fraught with 
37* 



438 SPEECH OF BURKE. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

wisdom and knowledge. " My hold of the colonies," said this 
great oracle of moral wisdom, " is the close affection which grows 
from the common names, from the kindred blood, from similar 
privileges, and from equal protection. These are the ties which, 
though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colo- 
nies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your 
government ; they will cling and grapple with you, and no power 
under heaven will be able to tear them from their allegiance. 
But let it once be understood that your government may be one 
thing, and their privileges another, then the cement is gone, and 
every thing hastens to dissolution. It is the love of the people, 
it is their attachment to your government from the sense in the 
deep stake they have in such glorious institutions, which gives 
you your army and navy, and infuses into both that liberal obe- 
dience without which your army Would be but a base rabble, and 
your navy nothing but rotten timber." But this elevated and sub- 
lime wisdom was regarded as a philosophical abstraction, as a vain 
and impractical view of political affairs, well enough for a writer 
on the " sublime and beautiful," but absurd in a British statesman. 
Colonel Barre and Fox supported Burke ; but their eloquence had 
not much effect on the Commons, and the ministry; was supported 
in their measures. The colonies were declared to be in a state 
of rebellion, and measures were adopted to crush them. 

To declare the colonies in a state of rebellion was, in fact, to 
declare war. And this was perfectly understood by the popular 
leaders who fanned the spirit of resistance. All ideas of recon- 
ciliation now became chimerical. Necessity stimulated the timid, 
and vengeance excited the bold. It was felt that the people were 
now to choose between liberty and slavery, and slavery was, of 
course, regarded as worse than death. " We must look back," 
said the popular orators, " no more ! We must conquer or die ! 
We are placed between altars smoking with the most grateful 
incense of glory and gratitude on the one part, and blocks and 
dungeons on the other. Let each, then, rise and gird himself for 
the conflict. The dearest interests of the world command it ; our 
most holy religion requires it. Let us banish fear, and remember 
that fortune smiles only on the brave." 

Such was the general state of feeling ; and there only needed a 



CHAP. XXVin.] BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 439 

spark to kindle a conflagration. That spark was kindled at Lex- 
ington. General Gage, the governor, having learned that military 
stores and arms were deposited at Concord, resolved to seize them. 
His design was suspected, and the people prepared to resist his 
orders. The alarm bells were rung, and the cannons were fired. 
The provincial militia assembled, and the English retreated to 
Lexington. That village witnessed the commencement of a long 
and sanguinary war. The tide of revolution could no longer be 
repressed.- The. colonies were now resolved to achieve their 
independence. 

The Continental Congress met on the 10th of May, 1775, 
shortly after the first blood had been shed at Lexington, and 
immediately proceeded to raise an army , establish ' a paper cur- 
rency, and to dissolve the compact between Great Britain and the 
Massachusetts colony. John Hancock was chosen president of 
the assembly, and George Washington commander-in-chief of the 
continental army. He accepted the appointment with a modesty 
only equalled by his merit, and soon after departed for the seat 
of war. For his associates, Congress appointed Artemas Ward, 
Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel Putnam as major-generals, 
and Seth Pomeroy, Richard Montgomery, David Wooster, William 
Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Thomas, John Sullivan, and Nathanael 
Greene as brigadiers. Horatio Gates received the appointment 
of adjutant-general, with the rank of brigadier. 

On the 17th of June was fought the battle of Bunker Hill, 
Which proved the bravery of the Americans, and which was 
followed by great moral results. But the Americans unfortunately 
lost, in this battle, Dr. Warren, who had espoused the cause of 
revolution with the same spirit that Hampden did in England, and 
Whom he resembled in genius, patriotism, and character. He 
had been chosen major-general four days before his death, but 
fought at Bunker Hill as a simple volunteer. On the 2d of July, 
Washington took command of the army, and established his head- 
quarters at Cambridge. The American army amounted to seven- 
teen thousand men, of whom twenty-five hundred were unfit for duty. 
They were assembled on the spur of the occasion, and had but 
few tents and stores, no clothing, no military chest, and no general 
organization. They were collected from the various provinces, 
and were governed by their own militia laws. Of this material 



440 DEATH OF MONTGOMERY. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

he constructed the first continental army, and under innumerable 
vexations and difficulties. No man was ever placed in a more 
embarrassing situation. His troops were raw and undisciplined ; 
and the members of the Continental Congress, from whom he 
received his commission, were not united among themselves. He 
had all the responsibility of the war, and yet had not sufficient 
means to prosecute it with the vigor which the colonies probably 
anticipated. His success, in the end, was glorious and unequiv- 
ocal ; but none other than he could have secured it, and not he, 
even, unless he had been sustained by a loftiness of character 
almost preternatural. 

The English forces, at this time, were centred in Boston under 
the command of General Gage, and were greatly inferior in point 
of numbers to the American troops who surrounded them. But 
the troops of Gage were regulars and veterans, and were among 
the best in the English army. He was recalled in order to give 
information to the government in reference to the battle of Bunker 
Hill, and was succeeded in October by General Howe. 

The first campaign of the war was signalized by the invasion 
of Canada by the American troops, with the hope of wresting 
that province from the English, which was not only disaffected, 
but which was defended by an inconsiderable force. General 
Montgomery, with an army of three thousand, advanced to Mont- 
real, which surrendered. The fortresses of Crown Point and 
Ticonderoga had already been taken by Colonel Ethan Allen. 
But the person who most distinguished himself in this unfortunate 
expedition was Colonel Benedict Arnold, who, with a detachment 
of one thousand men, penetrated through the forests, swamps, and 
mountains of Maine, beyond the sources of the Kennebec, and, in 
six weeks from his departure at Boston, arrived on the plains of 
Canada, opposite Quebec. He there effected a junction with the 
troops of Montgomery, and made an assault on the strongest 
fortress in America, defended by sixteen hundred men. The 
attack was unsuccessful, and Montgomery was killed. Arnold 
did not retire from the province, but remained encamped upon the 
Heights of Abraham. This enterprise, though a failure, was not 
without great moral results, since it showed to the English gov- 
ernment the singular bravery and intrepidity of the nation it had 
undertaken to coerce. 



CHAP. XXVIII.] DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 441 

The ministry then resolved upon vigorous measures, and, find- 
ing a difficulty in raising men, applied to the Landgrave of Hesse 
for seventeen thousand mercenaries. These, added to twenty-five 
thousand men enlisted in England, and the troops already sent to 
America, constituted a force of fifty-five thousand men — deemed 
amply sufficient to reduce the rebellious colonies. But these were 
not sent to America until the next year. 

In the mean time, General Howe was encamped in Boston with 
a force, including seamen, of eleven thousand men, and General 
Washington, with an army of twenty-eight thousand, including 
militia, was determined to attack him. In February, 1776, he 
took possession of Dorchester Heights, which command the har- 
bor. General Howe found it expedient to evacuate Boston, and 
sailed for Halifax with his army, and Washington repaired to 
Philadelphia to deliberate with Congress. 

But Howe retired from Boston only to occupy New York ; and 
when his arrangements were completed, he landed at Staten 
Island, waiting for the arrival of his brother, Lord Howe, with the 
expected reenforcements. By the middle of August they had all 
arrived, and his united forces amounted to twenty-four thousand 
men. Washington's army, though it nominally numbered twenty 
thousand five hundred, still was composed of only about eleven 
thousand effective men, and these imperfectly provided with arms 
and ammunition. Nevertheless, Washington gave battle to the 
English; but the result was disastrous to the Americans, owing 
to the disproportion of the forces engaged. General Howe took 
possession of Long Island, the Americans evacuated NewYork, and, 
shortly after, the city fell into the hands of the English. Washing- 
ton, with his diminished army, posted himself at Haerlem Heights. 

But before the victory of Howe on Long Island was obtained, 
Congress had declared the Independence of the American States, 
(4th July, 1776.) This Declaration of Independence took the 
English nation by surprise, and firmly united it against the colo- 
nies. It was received by the Americans, in every section of the 
country, with unbounded enthusiasm. Reconciliation was now 
impossible, and both countries were arrayed against each other 
in fierce antagonism. 

The remainder of the -campaign of 1776 was occupied by 



442 COMMISSIONERS SENT TO FRANCE. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

the belligerents in skirmishing, engagements, marchings and 
count ermarchings, irf the states of New York and New Jersey. 
The latter state was overrun by the English army, and success, 
on either side, was indecisive. Forts Washington and Lee were 
captured. General Lee was taken prisoner. The capture of 
Lee, however, was not so great a calamity as it, at first, seemed ; 
for, though a man of genius and military experience, his am- 
bition, vanity, and love of glory would probably have led to an 
opposition to his superior officer, and to Congress itself. To 
compensate for the disasters in New Jersey, Washington, invested 
with new and extraordinary power by Congress, gained the battles 
of Princeton and Trenton, which were not only brilliant victories, 
but were attended by great moral effects, and showed the diffi- 
culty of subduing a people determined to be free. " Every one 
applauded the firmness, the prudence, and the bravery of Wash- 
ington. All declared him to be the savior of his country ; all pro- 
claimed him equal to the most renowned commanders of antiquity, 
and especially distinguished him by the name of the American 
Fabius." 

The greatness of Washington was seen, not so much by his 
victories at Princeton and Trenton, or by his masterly retreat 
before superior forces, as by his admirable prudence and patience 
during the succeeding winter. He had, for several months, a force 
which scarcely exceeded fifteen hundred men, and these suffered 
all manner of hardships and privations. After the first gush of 
enthusiasm had passed, it was found exceedingly difficult to enlist 
men, and still more difficult to pay those who had enlisted. Con- 
gress, composed of great men, and of undoubted patriotism, on 
the whole, harmonized with the commander-in-chief, whom, for 
six months, it invested Avith almost dictatorial power ; still there 
were some of its members who did not fully appreciate the char- 
acter or condition of Washington, and threw great difficulties in 
his way. 

Congress about this time sent commissioners to France to solicit 
money and arms. These commissioners were Dr. Franklin, Silas 
Deane, and Arthur Lee. They were not immediately successful ; 
for the French king, doubtful of the result of the struggle, did not 
wish to incur prematurely the hostility of Great Britain ; but they 



CHAP. XXVIII.] CAPTURE OF BURGOYNE. 443 

induced many to join the American cause, and, among others, 
the young Marquis de La Fayette, who arrived in America in the 
spring of 1777, and proved a most efficient general, and secured 
the confidence and love of the nation he assisted. 

The campaign of 1777 was marked by the evacuation of the 
Jerseys by the English, by the battles of Bennington and Brandy- 
wine, by the capture of Philadelphia, and the surrender of 
Burgoyne. Success, on the whole, was in favor of the Americans. 
They suffered a check at Brandywine, and lost the most consid- 
erable city in the Union at that time. But these disasters were 
more than compensated by the victory at Bennington and the 
capture of Burgoyne. 

This indeed was the great event of the campaign. Burgoyne 
was a member of parliament, and superseded General Carleton 
in the command of the northern army — an injudicious appoint- 
ment, but made by the minister in order to cany his measures 
more easily through the House of Commons. The troops under 
his command amounted to over seven thousand veterans, besides a 
corps of artillery. He set out from St. John's, the 16th of June, 
and advanced to Ticonderoga, which he invested. The American 
forces, under General Schuyler, destined to oppose this royal army, 
and to defend Ticonderoga, were altogether insufficient, being not 
over five thousand men. The fortress was therefore abandoned, 
and the British general advanced to the Hudson, hoping to open a 
communication between it and Lake Champlain, and thus com- 
pletely surround New England, and isolate it from the rest of the 
country. But the delays attending the march of the English army 
through the forests enabled the Americans to rally. The defeat 
of Colonel Baum at Bennington, by Colonel Stark, added to the 
embarrassments of Burgoyne, who now was straitened for pro- 
visions ; nevertheless, he continued his march, hoping to reach 
Albany unmolested. But the Americans, commanded by General 
Gates, who had superseded Schuyler, were strongly intrenched at 
the principal passes on his route, and had fortified the high grounds. 
The army of Burgoyne was moreover attacked by the Americans 
at Stillwater, and he was forced to retreat to Saratoga. His 
army was now reduced to five thousand men ; he had only three 
days' provisions ; all the passes were filled by the enemy, and he 



444 MORAL EFFECTS OF BURGOYNE'S CAPTURE. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

was completely surrounded by fifteen thousand men. Under these 
circumstances, he was forced to surrender. His troops laid down 
their arms, but were allowed to embark at Boston for Europe. 
The Americans, by this victory, acquired forty-two pieces of brass 
artillery, four thousand six hundred muskets, and an immense 
quantity of military stores. This surrender of Burgoyne was the 
greatest disaster which the British troops had thus far experienced, 
and raised the spirits of the Americans to the highest pitch. 
Indeed, this surrender decided the fate of the war, for it proved 
the impossibility of conquering the Americans. It showed that 
they fought under infinitely greater advantages, since it was in 
their power always to decline a battle, and to choose their ground. 
It showed that the country presented difficulties which were insur- 
mountable. It mattered but little that cities were taken, when the 
great body of the people resided in the country, and were willing 
to make sacrifices, and were commanded by such generals as 
Washington, Gates, Greene, Putnam, and Lee. The English min- 
istry ought to have seen the nature of the contest ; but a strange 
infatuation blinded the nation. There were some, however, whom 
no national pride could blind. Lord Chatham was one of these 
men. " No man," said this veteran statesman, " thinks more 
highly of the virtues and valor of British troops than I do. I know 
that they can achieve any thing except impossibilities. But the 
conquest of America is an impossibility." 

There was one nation in Europe who viewed the contest with 
different eyes. This nation was France, then on the eve of revo- 
lution itself, and burning with enthusiastic love of the principles 
on which American independence was declared. The French 
government may not have admired the American cause, but it 
hated England so intensely, that it was resolved to acknowledge 
the independence of America, and aid the country with its forces. 

In the early part of the war, the American Congress had sent 
commissioners to France, in order to obtain assistance. In conse- 
quence of their representations, La Fayette, then a young man of 
nineteen years of age, freighted a ship at his own expense, and 
joined the American standard. Congress, in consideration of his 
illustrious rank and singular enthusiasm, gave him a commission 
of major-general. And gloriously did he fulfil the great expecta- 



CHAP. XXVIII.] ARRIVAL OF LA FAYETTE. 445 

tions which were formed of him ; richly did he deserve the grati- 
tude and praise of all the friends of liberty. 

La Fayette embarked in the American cause as a volunteer. 
The court of France, in the early period of the contest, did not 
think it expedient openly to countenance the revolution. But, 
after the surrender of Burgoyne, and it was evident that the United 
States would succeed in securing their independence, then it was 
acknowledged, and substantial aid was rendered, 

The winter which succeeded the surrender of Burgoyne is mem- 
orable for the sufferings of the American army encamped at Val- 
ley Forge, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. The army was 
miserably supplied with provisions and clothing, and strong discon- 
tent appeared in various quarters. Out of eleven thousand eight 
hundred men, nearly three thousand were barefooted and otherwise 
naked. But the sufferings of the army were not the only causes 
of solicitude to the commander-in-chief, on whom chiefly rested 
the responsibility of the war. The officers were discontented, 
and were not prepared, any more than the privates, to make 
permanent sacrifices. They were obliged to break in upon 
their private property, and were without any prospect of future 
relief. Washington was willing to make any sacrifices himself, 
and refused any payment for his own expenses ; but, while he 
exhibited the rarest magnanimity, he did not expect it from others, 
and urged Congress to provide for the future pay of the officers, 
when the war should close. He looked upon human nature as it 
was, not as he wished it to be, and recognized the principles of 
self-interest as well as those of patriotism. It was his firm con- 
viction that a long and lasting war could not, even in those times, 
be sustained by the principle of patriotism alone, but required, 
in addition, the prospect of interest, or some reward. The members 
of Congress did not all agree with him in his views, and expected 
that officers would make greater sacrifices than private citizens ; 
but, after a while, the plan of half-pay for life, as Washington 
proposed, was adopted by a small majority, though afterwards 
changed to half-pay for seven years. There was also a prejudice 
in many minds against a standing army, besides the jealousies and 
antipathies which existed between different sections of the Union. 
But Washington, with his rare practical good sense, combated 
38 



446 EVACUATION OF PHILADELPHIA. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

these, as well as the fears of the timid and the schemes of the 
selfish. The history of the Revolution impresses us with the 
greatness and bravery of the American nation ; and every Amer- 
ican should feel proud of his ancestors for the efforts they made, 
under so many discouragements, to secure their liberties ; but it 
would be a mistake to suppose that nothing but exalted heroism was 
exhibited. Human nature showed its degeneracy in the camp and 
on the field of battle, among heroes and among patriots. The 
perfection of character, so far as man is ever perfect, was exhib- 
ited indeed, by Washington, but by Washington alone. 

The army remained at Valley Forge till June, 1778. In the 
mean time, Lord North made another ineffectual effort to procure 
reconciliation. But he was too late. His offers might have been 
accepted at the commencement of the contest ; but nothing short 
of complete independence would now satisfy the Americans, and 
this North was not willing to concede. Accordingly, new meas- 
ures of coercion were resorted to by the minister, although the 
British forces in America were upwards of thirty-three thousand. 

On the 18th of June, Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded 
Sir William Howe in command of the British forces, evacuated 
Philadelphia, the possession of which had proved of no service to 
the English, except as winter quarters for the troops. It was his 
object to proceed to New York, for which place he marched with 
his army, having sent his heavy baggage by water. The Ameri- 
cans, with superior forces, hung upon his rear, and sought an 
engagement. An indecisive one occurred at Monmouth, during 
which General Lee disregarded the orders of his superior in com- 
mand, and was suspended for twelve months. There never was 
perfect harmony between Washington and Lee ; and the aid of the 
latter, though a brave and experienced officer, was easily dis- 
pensed with. 

No action of importance occurred during this campaign, and it 
was chiefly signalized by the arrival of the Count d'Estaing, with 
twelve ships of the line and four frigates, to assist the Americans. 
But, in consequence of disagreements and mistakes, this large 
armament failed to engage the English naval forces. 

The campaign of 1779 was not more decisive than that of the 
preceding year. Military operations were chiefly confined to the 



CHAP. XXVIII.] THE TREASON OF ARNOLD. 447 

southern sections of the country, in which the English generally 
gained the advantage, having superior forces. They overran the 
country, inflamed the hostility of the Indians, and destroyed con- 
siderable property. But they gained no important victory, and it 
was obvious to all parties that conquest was impossible. 

The campaign of 1780 is memorable for the desertion of Gen- 
eral Arnold. Though not attended by important political results, 
it produced an intense excitement. He was intrusted with the 
care of the fortress of West Point, which commanded the Hudson 
River ; but, dissatisfied, extravagant, and unprincipled, he thought 
to mend his broken fortunes by surrendering it to the British, who 
occupied New York. His treason was discovered when his schemes 
were on the point of being accomplished ; but he contrived to 
escape, and was made a brigadier-general in the service of the 
enemy. Public execration loaded his name with ignominy, and 
posterity has not reversed the verdict of his indignant countrymen. 
His disgrace and ruin were primarily caused by his extravagance 
and his mortified pride. Washington fully understood his want of 
moral principle, but continued to intrust him with power, in view 
of the great services he had rendered his country, and his unques- 
tioned bravery and military talents. After his defection, the 
American commander-in-chief was never known to intrust an 
important office to a man in whose virtue he had not implicit faith. 
The fate of Major Andre, who negotiated the treason with Arnold, 
and who was taken as a spy, was much lamented by the English. 
Neither his family, nor rank, nor accomplishments, nor virtues, 
nor the intercession of Sir Henry Clinton, could save him from 
military execution, according to the established laws of war. 
Washington has been blamed for not exercising more forbearance 
in the case of so illustrious a prisoner ; but the American general 
never departed from the rigid justice which he deemed it his duty 
to pursue. 

During this year, the American currency had singularly depre- 
ciated, so that forty dollars were worth only one in specie — a fact 
which shows the embarrassments of the country, and the difficulty 
of supporting the army. But the prospects of ultimate success 
enabled Congress, at length, to negotiate loans, and the army was 
kept together. 



448 SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS. [CHAP. XXVIII. 

The gi'eat event in the campaign of 1781 was the surrender of 
Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown, which decided the fate of the war. 
Lord Cornwallis, who was an able commander, had been success- 
ful at the south, although vigorously and skilfully opposed by 
General La Fayette. But he had at last to contend with the 
main body of the American army, and French forces in addition, 
so that the combined armies amounted to over twelve thousand 
men. He was compelled to surrender to superior forces ; and 
seven ' thousand prisoners, with all their baggage and stores, fell 
into the hands of the victors, 19th of October, 1781. This great 
event diffused universal joy throughout America, and a correspond- 
ing depression among the English people. 

After this capitulation, the conviction was general that the war 
would soon be terminated. General La Fayette obtained leave to 
return to France, and the recruiting service languished. The war, 
nevertheless, was continued until 1783 ; without, however, being 
signalized by any great events. On the 30th of November, 1782, 
preliminary articles of peace were signed at Paris, by which Great 
Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, and 
by which the whole country south of the lakes and east of the 
Mississippi was ceded to them, and the right of fishing on the 
Banks of Newfoundland. 

On the 25th of November, 1783, the British troops evacuated 
New York ; and, shortly after, the American army was disbanded. 
The 4th of December, Washington made his farewell address to 
his officers ; and, on the 23d of December, he resigned his com- 
mission into the hands of the body from which he received it, and 
retired to private life ; having discharged the great trust reposed 
in him in a manner which secured the gratitude of his country, 
and which will probably win the plaudits of all future generations. 

The results of the Revolutionary War can only be described by 
enumerating the progressive steps of American aggrandizement 
from that time to this, and by speculating on the future destinies 
of the Anglo-Saxon race on the American continent. The suc- 
cess which attended this long war is in part to be traced to the 
talents and matchless wisdom and integrity of the commander-in- 
chief ; to the intrepid courage and virtues of the armies he direct- 
ed ; to the self-confidence and inexperience of the English generals ; 



CHAP. XXVIII.] RESIGNATION OF LORD NORTH. 449 

to the difficulties necessarily attending the conquest of forests, 
and swamps, and scattered towns ; to the assistance of the French 
nation ; and, above all, to the superintending providence of God, 
who designed to rescue the sons of the Pilgrims from foreign 
oppression, and, in spite of their many faults, to make them a 
great and glorious nation, in which religious and civil liberty should 
be perpetuated, and all men left free to pursue their own means of 
happiness, and develop the inexhaustible resources of a great and 
boundless empire. 

The English nation acquiesced in an event which all felt to be 
inevitable ; but Lord North was compelled to resign, and a change 
of measures was pursued. It is now time to contemplate English 
affairs, until the French Revolution. 



References. — The books -written on the American Revolution are very 
numerous, an index to which may be seen in Botta's History, as well as in 
the writings of those who have treated of this great event. Sparks's Life 
and Correspondence of Washington is doubtless the most valuable work 
which has yet appeared since Marshall wrote the Life of Washington. 
Guizot's Essay on Washington is exceedingly able ; nor do I know any 
author who has so profoundly analyzed the character and greatness 
of the American hero. Botta's History of the Revolution is a pop- 
ular but superficial and overlauded book. Mr. Hale's History of the 
United States is admirably adapted to the purpose for which it is designed, 
and is the best compendium of American history;. Stedman is the standard 
authority in England. Belsham, in his History of George HI., has writ- 
ten candidly and with spirit. Smyth, in his lectures on Modern History, 
has discussed the Revolution with great ability. See also the works of 
Ramsay, Winterbotham, Allen, and Gordon. The lives of the prominent 
American generals, statesmen, and orators, should also be read in connec- 
tion ; especially of Lee, Greene, Franklin; Adams, and Henry, which are 
best described in Sparks's American Biography. 
38* 



450 WILLIAM PITT. [CHAP. XXIX. 

4 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT. 

We come now to consider the most eventful administration, in 
many important respects, in British annals. The greatness of 
military operations, the magnitude of reforms, and the great num- 
ber of illustrious statesmen and men of genius, make the period, 
when Pitt managed the helm of state, full of interest and grandeur. 

William Pitt, second son of the first Earl of Chatham, entered 
public life at a very early age, and was prime minister of George 
III. at a period of life when most men are just completing a pro- 
fessional education. He was a person of extraordinary precocity. 
He entered Cambridge University at the age of fourteen, and at 
that period was a finished Greek and Latin scholar. He spent no 
idle hours, and evinced but little pleasure in the sports common 
to boys of his age. He was as successful in mastering mathe- 
matics as the languages, and was an admirer of the profoundest 
treatises of intellectual philosophy. He excelled in every branch 
of knowledge to which he directed his attention. In 1780, at 
the age of twenty-one, he became a resident in Lincoln's Inn, 
entered parliament the succeeding spring, and immediately as- 
sumed an active part. His first speech astonished all who heard 
him, notwithstanding that great expectations were formed con- 
cerning his power. He was made chancellor of the exchequer at 
the age of twenty-three, and at a time when it required a finance 
minister of the greatest experience. Nor would the Commons 
have acquiesced in his appointment to so important a post, in so 
critical a state of the nation, had not great confidence existed as to 
his abilities. From his first appearance, Pitt took a commanding 
position as a parliamentary orator ; nor, as such, has he ever, on 
the whole, been surpassed. His peculiar talents fitted him for the 
highest post in the gift of his sovereign, and the circumstances of 
the times, in addition, were such as were calculated to develop all 
the energies and talents he possessed. He was not the most 



CHAP. XXIX.] EARLY LIFE OF PITT. 451 

commanding intellect of his age, but he was, unquestionably, the 
greatest orator that England has produced, and exercised, to the 
close of his career, in spite of the opposition of such men as 
Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, an overwhelming parliamentary influ- 
ence. He was a prodigy ; as great in debate, and in executive 
power, as Napoleon was in the field, Bacon in philosophy, or 
Shakspeare in poetry. It is difficult for us to conceive how a 
young man, just emerging from college halls, should be able to 
answer the difficult questions of veteran statesmen who had been 
all their lives opposing the principles he advanced, and to assume 
at once the powers with which his father was intrusted only at a 
mature period of life. Pitt was almost beyond envy, and the 
proud nobles and princely capitalists of the richest, proudest, and 
most conservative country in the world, surrendered to him the 
guardianship of their liberties with no more fear or distrust than 
the hereditary bondmen of Turkey or Russia would have shown in 
hailing the accession of a new emperor. He was born to com- 
mand, one of nature's despots, and he assumed the reins of govern- 
ment with a perfect consciousness of his abilities to rule. 

He was only twenty-four years of age when he began to reign ; 
for, as prime minister of George III., he was, during his continu- 
ance in office, the absolute ruler of the British empire. He had, 
virtually, the nomination of his colleagues, and, through them, the 
direction of all executive affairs. He was controlled by the legis- 
lature only, and parliament was subservient to his will. What a 
proud position for a young man to occupy ! A commoner, with 
a limited fortune, to give laws to a vast empire, and to have a 
proud nobility obedient to his will ; and all this by the force of 
talents alone — talents which extorted admiration and respect. 
He selected Lord Thurlow as chancellor, Lord Gower as presi- 
dent of the council, the Duke of Richmond as lord privy seal, 
Lords Carmarthen and Sydney as secretaries of state, and Lord 
Howe as first lord of the admiralty. These were his chief asso- 
ciates in resisting a powerful opposition, and in regulating the affairs 
of a vast empire — the concerns of India, the national debt, the 
necessary taxation, domestic tranquillity, and intercourse with 
foreign powers. But he deserved the confidence of his sovereign 
and of the nation, and they sustained him in his extraordinary 
embarrassments and difficulties. 



452 POLICY OF PITT. [CHAP. XXIX. 

The policy of the administration is not here to be discussed ; but 
it was the one pursued 1 , in the main, by his father, and one which 
gratified the national pride. The time has not yet come for us to 
decide, with certainty, on the wisdom of his course. He was the 
advocate of measures which had for their object national aggran- 
dizement. He was the strenuous defender of war, and he would 
oppose Napoleon and all the world to secure preeminence to 
Great Britain. He believed that glory was better than money ; he 
thought that an overwhelming debt was a less evil than national 
disgrace ; he exaggerated the resources and strength of his coun- 
try, and believed that it was destined to give laws to the world - r 
he underrated the abilities of other nations to make great advances 
in mechanical skill and manufacturing enterprise ; he supposed 
that English manufactures would be purchased forever by the rest 
of the world, and therefore that England, in spite of the debt, 
would make all nations contribute to her glory and wealth. It was 
to him a matter of indifference how heavily the people were taxed 
to pay the interest on a fictitious debt, provided that, by their 
commerce and manufactures, they could find abundant means to 
pay this interest. And so long as England could find a market for 
her wares, the nation would not suffer from taxation. His error 
was in supposing that England, forever, would manufacture for 
the world ; that English skill was superior to the skill of all other 
nations ; that there was a superiority in the very nature of an 
Englishman which would enable him, in any country, or under 
any circumstances, to overcome all competitors and rivals. Such 
views were grateful to his nation ; and he, by continually flatter- 
ing the national vanity, and ringing the changes on glory and 
patriotism, induced it to follow courses which may one day result 
in overwhelming calamities. Self-exaggeration is as fatal to a 
nation as it is to an individual, and constitutes that pride which 
precedes destruction. But the mere debt of England, being owed 
to herself, and not to another nation, is not so alarming as it is 
sometimes supposed. The worst consequence, in a commercial 
point of view, is national bankruptcy ; but if England becomes 
bankrupt, her factories, her palaces, her warehouses, and her ships 
remain. These are not destroyed. Substantial wealth does not 
fly from the island, but merely passes from the hands of capitalists 



CHAP. XXIX.] DIFFICULTIES WITH IRELAND. 453 

to the people. The policy of Pitt has merely enriched the few at 
the expense of the many — has confirmed the power of the aris- 
tocracy. When manufacturers can no longer compete with those 
of other countries, upon such unequal terms as are rendered neces- 
sary in consequence of unparalleled taxation to support the public 
creditors, then the public creditors must suffer rather than the 
manufacturer himself. The manufacturer must live. This class 
composes a great part of the nation. The people must be fed, 
and they will be fed ; and they can be fed as cheaply as in any 
country, were it not for taxes. The policy of Pitt, during the 
period of commercial prosperity, tended, indeed, to strengthen the 
power of the aristocracy — that class to which he belonged, and 
to which the House of Commons, who sustained him, belonged. 
But it was suicidal, as is the policy of all selfish men ; and 
ultimately must tend to revolutionary measures, even though 
those measures may not be carried by massacres and blazing 
thrones. 

But we must hasten to consider the leading events which char- 
acterized the administration of William Pitt. These were the 
troubles in Ireland, parliamentary reforms, the aggrandizement of 
the East India Company, the trial of Hastings, debates on the slave 
trade, and the war with France in consequence of the French 
Revolution. 

The difficulties with Ireland did not become alarming until the 
French Revolution had created a spirit of discontent and agitation 
in all parts of Great Britain. Soon after his accession to power, 
Mr. Flood, a distinguished member of the Irish House of Com- 
mons, brought in a bill of parliamentary reform, which, after a long 
debate, was negatived. Though his measui'e was defeated in the 
House, its advocates out of doors were not cast down, but took 
measures to form a national congress, for the amelioration of the 
evils which existed. A large delegation of the people actually 
met at Dublin, and petitioned parliament for the redress of griev- 
ances. Mr. Pitt considered the matter with proper attention, and 
labored to free the commerce of Ireland from the restraints under 
which it labored. But, in so doing, he excited the jealousy of 
British merchants and manufacturers, and they induced him to 
remodel his propositions for the relief of Ireland, which were 



454 THE UNITED IRISHMEN. [CHAP. XXIX. 

then adopted. Tranquillity was restored until the year 1791, 
when there appeared'at Belfast the plan of an association, under 
the name of the United Irishmen, whose object was a radical 
reform of all the evils which had existed in Ireland since its con- 
nection with England. This association soon extended throughout 
the island, and numbered an immense body of both Protestants 
and Catholics, who were disaffected with the government. In 
consequence of the disaffections, especially among the Catholics, 
the English ministiy made many concessions, and the legislature 
allowed Catholics to practice law, to intermarry with Protestants, 
and to obtain an unrestrained education. But parliament also 
took measures to prevent the assembling of any convention of 
the people, and augmented the militia in case of disturbance. 
But disturbances took place, and the United Irishmen began to 
contemplate an entire separation from England, and other treason- 
able designs. In consequence of these commotions, the Habeas 
Corpus Act was suspended, and a military government was enforced 
with all its rigor. The United Irish pretended to submit, but laid 
still deeper schemes, and extended their affiliations. In May, 
1797, the number of men enrolled by the union in Ulster alone 
was one hundred thousand, and their organization was perfect. 
The French government was aware of the union, which gradually 
numbered five hundred thousand men, and promised it assistance. 
The Irish, however, relied chiefly upon themselves, and prepared 
to resist the English government, which was resolved on pursuing 
the most vigorous measures. A large military force was sent to 
Ireland, and several ringleaders of the contemplated insurrection 
were arrested. 

But the timely discovery of the conspiracy prevented one of 
the most bloody contests which ever happened in Ireland. Never- 
theless, the insurrection broke out in some places, and in the 
county of Wexford was really formidable. The rebels num- 
bered twenty thousand men. They got possession of Wexford, 
and committed great barbarities ; but they were finally sub- 
dued by Lord Comwallis. Had the French cooperated, as they 
had promised, with a force of fifteen thousand, it is not im- 
probable that Ireland would have been wrested from England. 
But the French had as much as they could do, at this time, to 



CHAP. XXIX.] UNION OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 455 

take care of themselves ; and Ireland was again subjected to 
greater oppressions than before. 

The Irish parliament had hitherto been a mere body of perpetual 
dictators. By the Octennial Bill, this oligarchy was disbanded, 
and the House of Commons wore something of the appearance 
of a constitutional assembly, and there were found in it some men 
of integrity and sagacity. Ireland also had her advocates in the 
British senate ; but whenever the people or the parliament gained 
a victory over the viceroy, some accident or blunder deprived the 
nation of reaping the fruits. The Commons became again cor- 
rupted, and the independence which Ireland obtained ceased to 
have a value. The corrupted Commons basely surrendered all 
that had been obtained. In vain the eloquence of Curran and 
Grattan. The Irish nation, without public virtue, a prey to fac- 
tion, and a scene of corruption, became at last powerless and 
politically helpless. The rebellion of 1798 was a mere peasants' 
war, without intelligence to guide, or experience to counsel. 
It therefore miserably failed, but did not fail until fifty thousand 
rebels and twenty thousand royalists had perished. 

In June, 1800, the union of Ireland and England was effected, 
on the same basis as that between England and Scotland in the time 
of Anne. It was warmly opposed by some of the more patriotic 
of the Irish statesmen, and only carried by corruption and bribery. 
By this union, foreign legislation took the place of the guidance of 
those best qualified to know the national grievances ; the Irish 
members became, in the British senate, merely the tools of the 
administration. Absenteeism was nearly doubled, and the national 
importance nearly annihilated in a political point of view. But, 
on the other hand, an oligarchial tyranny was broken, and the 
bond of union which bound the countries was strengthened, and 
the nation subsided into a greater state of tranquillity. Twenty- 
eight peers and one hundred commoners were admitted into the 
English parliament. 

Notwithstanding the suppression of the rebellion of 1798, only 
five years elapsed before another one was contemplated — the 
result of republican principles, and of national grievances. The 
leaders were Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell. But their 
treasonable designs were miserably supported by their country- 



456 CONDITION OF IRELAND. [CHAP. XXIX. 

men, and they were able to make but a feeble effort, which imme- 
diately failed. The*e men were arrested, tried, and executed. 
The speech of Emmet, before his execution, has been much 
admired for its spirit of patriotism and pensive eloquence. His 
grand mistake consisted in overrating the strength of demo- 
cratic influences, and in supposing that, by violent measures, he 
could overturn a strong military government. The Irish were not 
prepared for freedom, still less republican freedom. There was 
not sufficient concert, or patriotism, or intelligence, to secure pop- 
ular liberty, and the antipathy between the Catholic and Protestant 
population was too deeply seated and too malignant to hope, 
reasonably, for a lasting union. 

All the measures which have been adopted for the independence 
and elevation of Ireland have failed, and the country is still in as 
lamentable a state as ever. It presents a grand enigma and mys- 
tery to the politician. All the skill of statesmen is baffled in 
devising means for the tranquillity and improvement of that un- 
happy and unfortunate country. The more privileges the people 
gain, and the greater assistance they receive, the more unreason- 
able appear to be their demands, and the more extravagant their 
expectations. Still, there are great and shameful evils, which 
ought to be remedied. There are nearly five millions of acres of 
waste land in the country, capable of the highest cultivation. The 
soil is inexhaustibly rich, the climate is most delightful, and the 
natural advantages for agriculture and commerce unprecedented. 
Still the Irish remain oppressed and poor ; enslaved by their priests, 
and ground down to the earth by exacting landlords and a hostile 
government. There is no real union between England and Ire- 
land, no sympathy between the different classes, and an implacable 
animosity between the Protestant and Catholic population. The 
northern and Protestant part of the island is the most flourishing ; 
but Ireland, in any light it may be viewed, is the most miserable 
country, with all the gifts of nature, the worst governed, and 
the most afflicted, in Christendom ; and no human sagacity or 
wisdom has yet been able to devise a remedy for the innu- 
merable evils which prevail. The permanent causes of the 
degradation of the Irish peasantry, in their own country, have 
been variously attributed to the Roman Catholic priesthood, to the 



CHAP. XXIX.] PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 457 

tyranny of the government, to the system by which the lands are 
leased and cultivated, and to the natural elements of the Irish 
character. These, united, may have produced the effects which 
all philanthropists deplore ; but no one cause, in particular, can 
account for so fine a nation sinking into such poverty and wretch- 
edness, especially when it is considered tha the same idle and 
miserable peasantry, when transplanted to America, exhibit very 
different dispositions and tastes, and develop traits of character 
which command respect and secure prosperity. 

The first plan for parliamentary reform was brought forward 
by Pitt in 1782, before he was prime minister, in consequence of 
a large number of the House representing no important interests, 
and dependent on the minister. But his motion , was successfully 
opposed. In May, 1783, he brought in another bill to add one 
hundred members to the House of Commons, and to abolish a 
proportionate number of the small and obnoxious boroughs. This 
plan, though supported by Fox, was negatived by a great majority. 
In 1785, he made a third attempt to secure a reform of parlia- 
ment, and again faded ; and with this last attempt ended all his 
efforts for this object. So persuaded was he of the impractica- 
bility of the measure, that he even uniformly* opposed the object 
when attempted by others. Moreover, he changed his opinions 
when he perceived the full connection and bearing of the subject 
with other agitating questions. He was desirous of a reform, if it 
could be obtained without mischief;, but when it became a demo- 
cratic measure, he opposed it with all his might. Indeed, he 
avowed that he preferred to have parliament remain as it vras, 
forever, rather than risk any prospects of reform when the country 
was so deeply agitated by revolutionary discussions. Mr. Pitt 
perfectly understood that those persons who were most eager for 
parliamentary reform, desired the overthrow of the existing institu- 
tions of the land, or, at least, such as were inconsistent with the 
hereditary succession to the throne, hereditary titles, and the whole 
system of entailed estates. Mr. Pitt, as he grew older, more 
powerful, and more experienced, became more aristocratic and 
conservative; feared to touch any of the old supports of the 
constitution for fear of producing a revolution — an evil which, 
of all evils, he most abhorred. Mr. Burke, though opposed to the 
39 



458 WARREN HASTINGS. [CHAP. XXIX. 

minister, here defended him, and made an eloquent speech against 
revolutionary measures. Nor can we wonder at the change of 
opinion, which Mr. Pitt and others admitted, when it is considered 
that the advocates of parliamentary reform also were asso- 
ciated with men of infidel and dangerous principles. Thomas 
Paine was one of the apostles of liberty in that age, and his 
writings had a very great and very pernicious influence on the 
people at large. It is very singular, but nevertheless true, that 
some of the most useful reforms have been projected by men of 
infidel principles, and infidelity and revolutionary excess have 
generally been closely connected. 

But the reform question did not deeply agitate the people of 
England until a much later period. One of the most exciting 
events, in the domestic history of England during the administra- 
tion of Pitt, was the trial of Hastings and the difficulties which 
grew out of the aggrandizement of the East India Company. 

In the chapter on colonization, allusion was made to Indian 
affairs until the close of the administration of Lord Clive. War- 
ren Hastings continued the encroachments and conquests which 
Clive had so successfully begun. He went to India in 1750, at 
the age of seventeen, as a clerk in the service of the company. 
It was then merely a commercial corporation. His talents and 
sagacity insured his prosperity. He gradually was promoted, 
and, in 1772, was appointed head of the government in Bengal. 
But the governor was not then, as he now is, nearly absolute, and 
he had only one vote in the council which represented the company 
at Calcutta. He was therefore frequently overruled, and his power 
was crippled. But he contrived to make important changes, and 
abolished the office of the minister to whom was delegated the collec- 
tion of the revenue and the general regulation of internal affairs — 
an office which had been always held by a native. Hastings trans- 
ferred the internal administration to the servants of the company, 
and in various other ways improved the finances of the company, the 
members of which were indifferent, comparatively, to the condition 
of the people of India, provided that they themselves were enriched. 
To enrich the company and extend its possessions, even at the ex- 
pense of justice and humanity, became the object of the governor- 
general. He succeeded ; but success brought upon him the impre- 



CHAP. XXIX.] WAK WITH HYDER ALL 459 

cations of the natives and the indignant rebukes of his own country- 
men. In less than two years after he had assumed the government, 
he added four hundred thousand pounds to the annual income of 
the company, besides nearly a million in ready money. But the 
administration of Hastings cannot be detailed. We can only 
notice that part of it which led to his trial in England. 

The great event which marked his government was the war 
with Hyder Ali, the Mohammedan sovereign of Mysore. The 
province of Bengal and the Carnatic had been, for some time, 
under the protection of the English. Adjoining the Carnatic, in 
the centre of the peninsula, were the dominions of Hyder Ali. 
Had Hastings been governor of Madras, he would have concil- 
iated him, or vigorously encountered him as an enemy. But the 
authorities at Madras had done neither. They provoked him to 
hostilities, and, with an army of ninety thousand men, he invaded 
the Carnatic. The British empire was on the verge of ruin. 
Hyder Ali was every where triumphant, and only a few fortified 
places remained to the English. 

Hastings, when he heard of the calamity, instantly adopted the 
most vigorous measures. He settled his difficulties with the Mah- 
rattas ; he suspended the incapable governor of Fort George, and 
sent Sir Eyre Coote to oppose the great Mohammedan prince who 
threatened to subvert the English power in India. 

But Hastings had not the money which was necessaiy to carry 
on an expensive war with the most formidable enemy the English 
ever encountered in the East. He therefore resolved to plunder 
the richest and most sacred city of India — Benares. It was the 
seat of Indian learning and devotion, and contained five hundred 
thousand people. Its temple, as seen from the Gangqs, was the 
most imposing in the Eastern world, while its bazaars were filled 
with the most valuable and rare of Indian commodities ; with the 
muslins of Bengal, the shawls of Cashmere, the sabres of Oude, 
and the silks of its own looms. 

This rich capital was governed by a prince nominally subject to 
the Great Mogul, but who was dependent on the Nabob of Oude, 
a large province north of the Ganges, near the Himmaleh Moun- 
tains. Benares and its territories, being oppressed by the Nabob 
of Oude, sought the protection of the British. Their protection 



460 ROBBERY OF THE PRINCESSES OF OUDE. [CHAP. XXIX. 

was, of course, readily extended ; but it was fatal to the independ- 
ence of Benares. ■'The alliance with the English was like the 
protection Rome extended to Greece when threatened by Asia, 
and which ended in the subjection of both Greece and Asia. The 
Rajah of Benares became the vassal of the company, and there- 
fore was obliged to furnish money for the protection he enjoyed. 

But the tribute which the Rajah of Benares paid did not satisfy 
Hastings. He exacted still greater sums, which led to an insur- 
rection and ultimate conquest. The fair domains of Cheyte Sing, 
the lord of Benares, were added to the dominions of the company, 
together with an increased revenue of two hundred thousand 
pounds a year. The treasure of the rajah amounted to two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand pounds, and this was divided as prize 
money among the English. 

The rapacious governor-general did not obtain the treasure 
which he expected to find at Benares, and then resolved to rob the 
Princesses of Oude, who had been left with immense treasures on 
the death of Suraj-w Dowlah, the nabob vizier of the Grand Mogul. 
The only pretext which Hastings could find was, that the insur- 
rection at Benares had produced disturbances at Oude, and which 
disturbances were imputed to the princesses. Great barbarities 
were inflicted in order to secure these treasures ; but the robbers 
were successful, and immense sums flowed into the treasury of the 
company. By these iniquities, the governor found means to con- 
duct the war on the Carnatic successfully, and a treaty was con- 
cluded with Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, by which the company 
reigned without a rival on the great Indian peninsula. 

When peace was restored to India, and the company's servants 
had accumulated immense fortunes, Hastings returned to England. 
But the iniquities he had practised excited great indignation among 
those statesmen who regarded justice and humanity as better sup- 
ports to a government than violence and rapine. 

Foremost among these patriots was Edmund Burke. He had 
long been a member of the select committee to investigate Indian 
affairs, and he had bestowed great attention to them, and fully 
understood the course which Hastings had pursued. 

Through his influence, an inquiry into the conduct of the late 
gevernor-general was instituted, and he was accordingly impeached 



CHAP. XXIX.] PROSECUTION OF HASTINGS. 461 

at the bar of the House of Lords, Mr. Pitt permitted matters to 
take their natural course ; but the king, the Lord Chancellor 
Thurlow, the ministers generally, and the directors of the East 
India Company espoused his cause. They regarded him as a 
very great man, whose rule had been glorious to the nation, in 
spite of the mistakes and cruelties which marked his government. 
He had added an empire to the British crown, educed order out 
of anarchy, and organized a system of administration which, in its 
essential features, has remained to this time. He enriched the 
company, while he did not enrich himself; for he easily might 
have accumulated a fortune of three millions of pounds. And he 
moreover contrived, in spite of his extortions and conquests, to 
secure the respect of the native population, whose national and 
religious prejudices he endeavored not to shock. " These things 
inspired good will. At the same time, his constant success, and 
the manner in which he extricated himself from every difficulty, 
made him an object of superstitious admiration ; and the more 
than regal splendor which he sometimes displayed, dazzled a 
people who have much in common with children. Even now, 
after the lapse of more than fifty years, the natives of India still 
talk of him as the greatest of the English, and nurses sing children 
to sleep with a gingling ballad about the fleet horses and richly- 
caparisoned elephants of Sahib Warren Hostein." 

But neither the admiration of the people of the East for the 
splendid abilities of Hastings, nor the gratitude of a company of 
merchants, nor the powerful friends he had in the English parlia- 
ment, could screen him from the malignant hatred of Francis, or 
the purer indignation of Burke. The zeal which the latter evinced 
in his prosecution has never been equalled, and all his energies, 
for years, were devoted to the exposure of a person whom he 
regarded as " a delinquent of the first magnitude." "He had just 
as lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George 
Gordon's riots, and of the execution of Nuncomac as of the exe- 
cution of Dr. Dodd." Burke was assisted in his vehement 
prosecution by Charles James Fox, the greatest debater ever 
known in the House of Commons, but a man vastly inferior to 
himself in moral elevation, in general knowledge, in power of 
fancy, and in profound wisdom. 
39* 



462 EDMUND BURKE. [CHAP. XXTX. 

The trial was at Westminster Hall, the hall which had witnessed 
the inauguration of thirty kings, and the trials of accused nobles 
since the time of William Rufus. And he was a culprit not 
unworthy of that great tribunal before which he was summoned — 
" a tribunal which had pronounced sentence on Strafford, and pardon 
on Somers " — the tribunal before which royalty itself had been 
called to account. Hastings had ruled, with absolute sway, a 
country which was more populous and more extensive than any 
of the kingdoms of Europe, and had gained a fame which was 
bounded only by the unknown countries of the globe. He was 
defended by three men who subsequently became the three highest 
judges of the land, and he was encouraged by the appearance and 
sympathetic smiles of the highest nobles of the realm. 

But greater than all were the mighty statesmen who conducted 
the prosecution. First among them in character and genius was 
Edmund Burke, who, from the time that he first spoke in the 
House of Commons, in 1766, had been a prominent member, and 
had, at length, secured greater fame than any of his contempora- 
ries, Pitt alone excepted, not merely as an orator, but as an 
enlightened statesman, a philosopher, and a philanthropist. He 
excelled all the great men with whom he was associated, in the 
variety of his powers ; he was a poet even while a boy ; a pene- 
trating philosopher, critic, and historian before the age of thirty ; 
a statesman of unrivalled moral wisdom ; an orator whose speeches 
have been read with increasing admiration in every succeeding 
age ; a judge of the fine arts to whose opinions Reynolds submit- 
ted ; and a writer on various subjects, in which he displayed not 
only vast knowledge, but which he treated in a style of matchless 
beauty and force. All the great men of his age — Johnson, Rey- 
nolds, Goldsmith, Garrick, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Windham, North, 
Thurlow, Parr — scholars, critics, divines, and statesmen — bore 
testimony to his commanding genius and his singular moral worth, 
to his hatred of vice, and his passionate love of virtue. ; But 
these great and varied excellences, which secured him the venera- 
tion of the finest minds in Europe, were not fully appreciated by 
his own nation, which was astonished rather than governed by his 
prophetic wisdom. But Burke was remarkable, not merely for his 
knowledge, eloquence, and genius, but also for an unblemished 



CHAP. XXIX.] CHARLES JAMES FOX. 463 

private life, for the habitual exercise of all those virtues, and the 
free expression of all those noble sentiments which only have 
marked exalted Christian characters. In his political principles, he 
was a conservative, and preferred to base his views on history and 
experience, rather than to try experiments, especially when these 
were advocated by men whose moral character or infidel senti- 
ments excited his distrust or aversion. He did not shut his eyes 
to abuse, but aimed to mend deliberately and cautiously. His 
admonition to his country respecting America corresponded with 
his general sentiments. "Talk not of your abstract rights of 
government ; I hate the very sound of them ; follow experience 
and common sense." He believed that love was better than force, 
and that the strength of any government consisted in the affections 
of the people. And these he ever strove to retain, and for these 
he was willing to relinquish momentary gain and selfish aggran- 
dizement. He advocated concession to the Irish legislature ; 
justice and security to the people of India ; liberty of conscience 
to Dissenters ; relief to small debtors; the suppression of general 
warrants ; the extension of the power of juries ; freedom of the 
press ; retrenchment in the public expenditures ; the removal of 
commercial restrictions ; and the abolition of the slave trade. He 
had a great contempt for " mechanical politicians," and " pedler 
principles." And he lived long enough to see the fulfilment of 
his political prophecies, and the horrors of that dreadful revolution 
which he had predicted and disliked, not because the principles 
which the French apostles of liberty advocated, were not abstract- 
edly true, but because they were connected with excesses, and 
an infidel recklessness in the violation of established social rights, 
which alarmed and disgusted him. He died in 1797, in the 
sixty-eighth year of his age, beloved and honored by the good and 
great in all Christian countries. 

Next to Burke, among the prosecutors of Hastings, for great- 
ness and popularity, was Charles James Fox ; inferior to Burke 
in knowledge, imagination, and moral power, but superior in all 
the arts of debate, the most logical and accomplished forensic 
orator which that age' of orators produced. His father, Lord 
Holland, had been the rival of the great Chatham, and he himself 
was opposed, nearly the whole of his public life, to the younger 



464 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. [CHAP. XXIX. 

Pitt. His political principles were like those of Burke until the 
French Revolution, vhose principles he at first admired. He was 
emphatically the man of the people, easy of access, social in his 
habits, free in his intercourse, without reserve or haughtiness, gen- 
erous, magnanimous, and conciliatory. He was unsurpassed for 
logical acuteness, and for bursts of overpowering passion. He 
reached high political station, although his habits were such as 
destroyed, in many respects, the respect of those great men with 
whom he was associated. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, another of the public accusers of 
Hastings, was a different man from either Burke or Fox. He 
was born in Ireland, but was educated at Harrow, and first distin- ' 
guished himself by writing plays. In 1776, on the retirement of 
Garrick, he became manager of Drury Lane Theatre ; and shortly 
after appeared the School for Scandal, which placed him on 
the summit of dramatic fame. In 1780, he entered parliament, 
and, when Hastings was impeached, was in the height of his repu- 
tation, both as a writer and orator. His power consisted in 
brilliant declamation and sparkling wit, and his speech in relation 
to the Princesses of Oude produced an impression almost without a 
parallel in ancient or modern times. Mr. Burke's admiration was 
sincere and unbounded, but Fox thought it too florid and rhetorical. 
His fame now rests on his dramas. But his life was the ship- 
wreck of genius, in consequence of his extravagance, his reckless- 
ness in incurring debts, and his dissipated habits, which disorgan- 
ized his moral character and undermined the friendships which 
his brilliant talents at first secured to him. 

But in spite of the indignation which these illustrious orators 
excited against Hastings, he was nevertheless acquitted, after a 
trial which lasted eight years, in consequence of the change of 
public opinion ; and, above all, in view of the great services which 
he had really rendered to his country. The expenses of the trial 
nearly ruined him ; but the East India Company granted him an 
annual income of four thousand pounds, which he spent in orna- 
menting and enriching Daylesford, the seat which had once 
belonged to his family, and which he purchased after his return 
from India. 

Although Warren Hastings was eventually acquitted by the 



CHAP. XXIX.] BILL FOR THE REGULATION OF INDIA. 465 

House of Lords, still his long and protracted trial brought to light 
many evils connected with the government of India ; and, in 1784, 
acts were passed which gave the nation a more direct control over 
the East India Company — the most gigantic monopoly the world 
has ever seen. That a company of merchants in Leadenhall 
Street should exercise an unlimited power over< an empire larger 
than the whole of Europe with the exception of Russia, and sacri- 
fice the interests of humanity to base pecuniary considerations, at 
length aroused the English nation. Accordingly, Mr. Pitt brought 
in a bill, which passed both Houses, which provided that the affairs 
of the company should be partly managed by a Board of Control, 
partly by the Court of Directors, and partly by a general meeting 
of the stockholders of the company. The Board of Control was 
intrusted to five privy counsellors, one of whom was secretary of 
state. It was afterwards composed of a president, such members 
of the privy council as the king should select, and a secretary. 
This board superintends and regulates all civil, military, and reve- 
nue officers, and political negotiations, and all general despatches. 
The Board of Directors, composed of twenty-four men, six of 
whom are annually elected, has the nomination of the governor- 
general, and the appointment of all civil and military officers. 
These two boards operate as a check against each other. 

The first governor-general, by the new constitution, was Lord 
Cornwallis, a nobleman of great military experience and elevated 
moral worth ; a man who was intrusted with great power, even 
after his misfortunes in America, and a man who richly deserved 
the confidence reposed in him. Still, he never was fortunate. He 
made blunders in India as well as in America. He did not fully 
understand the institutions of India, or the genius of the people. 
He was soon called to embark in the contests which divided the 
different native princes, and with the usual result. The simple 
principle of English territorial acquisition is, in defending the 
cause of the feebler party. The stronger party was then conquered, 
and became a province of the East India Company, while the 
weaker remained under English protection, until, by oppression, 
injustice, and rapacity on the part of the protectors, it was driven 
to rebellion, and then subdued. 

When Lord Cornwallis was sent to India, in 1786, the East 



466 WAR WITH TIPPOO SAIB. [CHAP. XXIX. 

India Company had obtained possession of Bengal, a part of Bahar, 
the Benares district <*f Allahabad, part of Orissa, the Circars, 
Bombay, and the Jaghire of the Carnatic — a district of one hun- 
dred miles along the coast. The other great Indian powers, 
unconquered by the English, were the Mahrattas, who occupied 
the centre of India, from Delhi to the Krishna, and from the Bay 
of Bengal to the Arabian Sea ; also, Golconda, the western parts 
of the Carnatic, Mysore, Oude, and the country of the Sikhs. 
Of the potentates who ruled over these extensive provinces, the 
Sultan of Mysore, Tippoo Saib, was the most powerful, although 
the Mahrattas country was the largest. 

The hostility of Tippoo, who inherited his father's prejudices 
against the English, excited the suspicions of Lord Cornwallis, 
and a desperate war was the result, in which the sultan showed 
the most daring courage. In 1792, the English general invested 
the formidable fortress of Seringapatam, with sixteen thousand 
Europeans and thirty thousand sepoys, and with the usual success. 
Tippoo, after the loss of this strong fort, and of twenty-three 
thousand of his troops, made peace with Lord Cornwallis, by the 
payment of four millions of pounds, and the surrender of half his 
dominions. Lord Cornwallis, after the close of this war, returned 
home, and was succeeded by Sir John Shore ; and he by Marquis 
Wellesley, ( 1798,) under whose administration the war with Tip- 
poo was renewed, in consequence of the intrigues of the sultan 
with the French at Pondicherry, to regain his dominions. The 
Sultan of Mysore was again defeated, and slain ; the dynasty of 
Hyder Ali ceased to Teign, and the East India Company took pos- 
session of the whole southern peninsula. A subsequent war with 
the Mahratta powers completely established the British supremacy 
in India. Delhi, the capital of the Great Mogul, fell into the hands 
of the English, and the emperor himself became a stipendiary of 
a company of merchants. The conquest of the eountry of the 
Mahrattas was indeed successful, but was attended by vast ex- 
penses, which entailed a debt on the company of about nineteen 
millions of pounds. The brilliant successes of Wellesley, how- 
ever, were not appreciated by the Board of Directors, who wanted 
dividends rather than glory, and he was recalled. 

There were no new conquests until 1817, under the government 



CHAP. XXIX.] CONQUEST OF INDIA. 467 

of the Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. He made 
war on the Pindarries, who were bands of freebooters in Central 
India. They were assisted by several native powers, which in- 
duced the governor-general to demand considerable cessions of 
territory. In 1819, the British effected a settlement at Singapore, 
by which a lucrative commerce was secured to Great Britain. 

Lord Hastings was succeeded by the Earl of Amherst, under 
whose administration the Burmese war commenced, and by which 
immense territories, between Bengal and China, were added to the 
British empire, (1826.) 

On the overthrow of the Mogul empire, the kingdoms of the 
Affghans and Sikhs, in the northern part of India, arose in impor- 
tance — kingdoms formerly subject to Persia. The war with these 
kingdoms will undoubtedly result in their complete subjection, with 
all their dependent provinces. 

In 1833, the charter of the East India Company expired, and a 
total change of system was the result. The company was de- 
prived of its exclusive right of trade, the commerce with India 
and China was freely opened to all the world, and the possessions 
and rights of the company were ceded to the nation for an annual 
annuity of six hundred and thirty thousand pounds. The political 
government of India, however, was continued to the company 
until 1853. 

Thus has England come in possession of one of the oldest and 
most powerful of the Oriental empires, containing a population of 
one hundred and eighty millions of people, speaking various lan- 
guages, and wedded irrecoverably to different social and religious 
institutions. The conquest of India is complete, and there is not 
a valuable office in the whole country which is not held by an 
Englishman. The native and hereditary princes of provinces, 
separately larger and more populous than Great Britain itself, are 
divested of all but the shadow of power, and receive stipends from 
the East India Company. The Emperor of Delhi, the Nabobs of 
Bengal and the Carnatic, the Rajahs of Tanjore and Benares, and 
the Princes of the house of Tippoo, and other princes, receive, 
indeed, an annual support of over a million sterling ; but their 
power has passed away. An empire two thousand miles from east 
to west, and eighteen hundred from north to south, and containing 



468 CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONQUEST. [CHAP. XXIX. 

more square miles than a territory larger than all the States be- 
tween the Mississippi atid the Atlantic Ocean, has fallen into the 
hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is true that a considerable 
part of Hindostan is nominally held by subsidiary allies, under the 
protection of the British government ; but the moment that these 
dependent princes cease to be useful, this protection will be with- 
drawn. There can be no reasonable doubt that the English rule is 
beneficent in many important respects. Order and law are better 
observed than formerly under the Mohammedan dynasty ; but no 
compensation is sufficient, in the eyes of the venerable Brahmin, for 
interference in the laws and religion of the country. India has 
been robbed by the armies of European merchants, and is only 
held in bondage by an overwhelming military force, which must 
be felt as burdensome and expensive when the plundered country 
shall no longer satisfy the avarice of commercial corporations. 
But that day may be remote. Calcutta now rivals in splendor and 
population the old capital of the Great Mogul. The palace of the 
governor-general is larger than Windsor Castle or Buckingham 
Palace ; the stupendous fortifications of Fort William rival the 
fortress of Gibraltar ; the Anglo-Indian army amounts to two 
hundred thousand men ; while the provinces of India are taxed, 
directly or indirectly, to an amount exceeding eighteen millions of 
pounds per annum. It is idle to speculate on the destinies of 
India, or the duration of the English power. The future is ever 
full of gloom, when scarcely any thing is noticeable but injustice 
and oppression on the part of rulers, and poverty and degradation 
among the governed. It is too much to suppose that one hundred 
and eighty millions of the human race can be permanently gov- 
erned by a power on the opposite side of the globe, and where 
there never can exist any union or sympathy between the nation 
that rules and the nations that are ruled, in any religious, social, or 
political institution ; and when all that is dear to the heart of man, 
and all that is consecrated by the traditions of ages, are made to 
subserve the interests of a mercantile state. 

But it is time to hasten to the consideration of the remaining 
subjects connected with the administration of William Pitt. 

The agitations of moral reformers are among the most prominent 
and interesting. The efforts of benevolent statesmen and philan- 



CHAP. XXIX.] "WAR WITH FRANCE. 469 

thropists to abolish the slave trade produced a great excitement 
throughout Christendom, and were followed by great results. 

In 1787, William Wilberforce, who represented the great county 
of York, brought forward, in the House of Commons, a motion for 
the abolition of the slave trade. The first public movements to 
put a stop to this infamous traffic were made by the Quakers in 
the Southern States of America, who presented petitions for that 
purpose to their respective legislatures. Their brethren in Eng- 
land followed their example, and presented similar petitions to the 
House of Commons. A society was formed, and a considerable 
sum was raised to collect information relative to the traffic, and to 
support the expense of application to parliament. A great resist- 
ance was expected and made, chiefly by merchants and planters. 
Mr. Wilberforce interested himself greatly in this investigation, 
and in May brought the matter before parliament, and supported 
his motion with overwhelming arguments and eloquence. Mr. 
Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. William Smith, and Mr. Whitbread sup- 
ported Mr. Wilberforce. Mr. Pitt defended the cause of abolition 
with great eloquence and power ; but the House was not then 
in favor of immediate abolition, nor was it carried until Mr. Fox 
and his friends came into power. 

The war with France, in consequence of the progress of the 
revolution, is too great a subject to be treated except in a chapter 
by itself. Mr. Pitt abstained from all warlike demonstrations until 
the internal tranquillity of England itself was affected by the propa- 
gation of revolutionary principles. But when, added to these, it 
was feared that the French were resolved to extend their empire, 
and overturn the balance of power, and encroach on the liberties 
of England, then Pitt, sustained by an overwhelming majority in 
parliament, declared war upon France, (1793.) The advocates 
of the French Revolution, however, take different views, and 
attribute the rise and career of Napoleon to the jealousy and 
encroachments of England herself, as well as of Austria and 
Prussia. Whether the general European war might not have been 
averted, is a point which merits inquiry, and on which British 
statesmen are not yet agreed. But the connection of England 
with this great war will be presented in the following chapter. 

Mr, Pitt continued to manage the helm of state until 1806 ; but 
40 



470 POLICY OF PITT. [CHAP. XXIX. 

all his energies were directed to the prosecution of the war, and 
no other events of importance took place during his administration. 

His genius most signally was displayed in his financial skill in 
extricating his nation from the great embarrassments which 
resulted from the American war, and in providing the means to 
prosecute still more expensive campaigns against Napoleon and 
his generals. He also had unrivalled talent in managing the 
House of Commons against one of the most powerful oppositions 
ever known, and in a period of great public excitements. He 
was always ready in debate, and always retained the confidence 
of the nation. He is probably the greatest of the English states- 
men, so far as talents are concerned, and so far as he represented 
the ideas and sentiments of his age. But it is a question which 
will long perplex philosophers whether he was the wisest of that 
great constellation of geniuses who enlightened his brilliant age. 
To him may be ascribed the great increase of the national debt. 
If taxes are the greatest calamity which can afflict a nation, then 
Pitt has entailed a burden of miseiy which will call forth eternal 
curses on his name, in spite of all the brilliancy of his splendid 
administration. But if the glory and welfare of nations consist in 
other things — in independence, patriotism, and rational liberty : 
if it was desirable, above all material considerations, to check the 
current of revolutionary excess, and oppose the career of a man 
who aimed to bring all the kings and nations of Europe under 
the yoke of an absolute military despotism, and rear a universal 
empire on the ruins of ancient monarchies and states, — then Pitt 
and his government should be contemplated in a different light. 

That mighty contest which developed the energies of this great 
statesman, as well as the genius of a still more remarkable man, 
therefore claims our attention. 



References. — Tomline's Life of Pitt. Belsham's History of George 
ILT. Prior's and Bissett's Lives of Burke. Moore's Life of Sheridan. 
TTalpole's Life of Fox. Life of Wilberforce, by his sons. Annual Regis- 
ter, from 1783 to 1806. Macaulay's Essay onTVarren Hastings. Elphin- 
stone's and Martin's Histories of India. Mill's British India. Russell's 
Modern Europe. Correspondence of Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke. Camp- 
bell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Boswell's Life of Johnson. Burke's 
Works. Schlosser's Modern History. 



CHAP. XXX.] CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 471 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

If the American war was the greatest event in modern times, 
in view of ultimate results, the French Revolution may be consid- 
ered the most exciting and interesting to the eye of contemporaries. 
The wars which grew out of the Revolution in France were con- 
ducted on a scale of much greater magnitude, and embroiled all 
the nations of Europe. A greater expenditure of energies took 
place than from any contest in the annals of civilized nations. Nor 
has any contest ever before developed so great military genius. 
Napoleon stands at the head of his profession, by general consent ; 
and it is probable that his fame will increase, rather than diminish, 
with advancing generations. 

It is impossible to describe, in a few pages, the great and varied 
events connected with the French Revolution, or even allude to all 
the prominent ones. The causes of this great movement are even 
more interesting than the developments. 

The question is often asked, could Louis XVI. have prevented 
the catastrophe which overturned his throne ? He might, perhaps, 
have delayed it ; but it was an inevitable event, and would have 
happened, sooner or later. There were evils in the government 
of France, and in the condition of the people, so overwhelming 
and melancholy, that they would have produced an outbreak. 
Had Richelieu never been minister ; had the Fronde never taken 
place ; had Louis XIV. and XV. never reigned ; had there been 
no such women as disgraced the court of France in the eighteenth 
century ; had there been no tyrannical kings, no oppressive nobles, 
no grievous taxes, no national embarrassments, no luxurious courts, 
no infidel writings, and no discontented people, — then Louis XVI. 
might have reigned at Versailles, as Louis XV. had done before 
him. But the accumulated grievances of two centuries called 
imperatively for redress, and nothing short of a revolution could 
have removed them. 



472 HELVETIUS VOLTAIRE. [CHAP. XXX. 

Now, what were those evils and those circumstances which, of 
necessity, produced tlje most violent revolutionary storm in the 
annals of the world ? The causes of the French revolution may 
be generalized under five heads : First, the influence of the writ- 
ings of infidel philosophers ; second, the diffusion of the ideas of 
popular rights ; third, the burdens of the people, which made 
these abstract ideas of right a mockery ; fourth, the absurd infat- 
uation of the court and nobles ; fifth, the derangement of the 
finances, which clogged the wheels of government, and led to the 
assembling of the States General. There were also other causes ; 
but the above mentioned are the most prominent. 

Of those philosophers whose writings contributed to produce 
this revolution, there were four who exerted a remarkable influ- 
ence. These were Helvetius, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot. 

Helvetius was a man of station and wealth, and published, in 
1758, a book, in which he carried out the principles of Condillac 
and of other philosphers of the sensational, or, as it is sometimes 
called, the sensuous school. He boldly advocated a system of 
undisguised selfishness. He maintained that man owed his supe- 
riority over the lower animals to the superior organization of the 
body. Proceeding from this point, he asserted, further, that every 
faculty and emotion are derived from sensation ; that all minds are 
originally equal ; that pleasure is the only good, and self-interest 
the only ground of morality. The materialism of Helvetius was 
the mere revival of pagan Epicurianism ; but it was popular, and 
his work, called De V Esprit, made a great sensation. It was 
congenial with the taste of a court and a generation that tolerated 
Madame de Pompadour. But the Parliament of Paris condemned 
it, and pronounced it derogatory to human nature, inasmuch as it 
confined our faculties to animal sensibility, and destroyed the 
distinctions between virtue and vice. 

His fame was eclipsed by the brilliant career of Voltaire, who 
exercised a greater influence on his age than any other man. He 
is the great apostle of French infidelity, and the great oracle of the 
superficial thinkers of his nation and age. He was born in 1694, 
and early appeared upon the stage. He was a favorite at Ver- 
sailles, and a companion of Frederic the Great — as great an 
egotist as he, though his egotism was displayed in a different way. 



CHAP. XXX.] ROUSSEAU. 473 

He was an aristocrat, made for courts, and not for the people, 
with whom he had no sympathy, although the tendency of his 
writings was democratic. In all his satirical sallies, he professed 
to respect authority. But he was never in earnest, was sceptical, 
insincere, and superficial. It would not be rendering him justice 
to deny that he had great genius. But his genius was to please, 
to amuse a vainglorious people, to turn every thing into ridicule, 
to pull down, and substitute nothing instead. He was a modern 
Lucian, and his satirical mockery destroyed reverence for God 
and truth. He despised and defied the future, and the future has 
rendered a verdict which can never be reversed — that he was 
vain, selfish, shallow, and cold, without faith in any spiritual 
influence to change the world. But he had a keen perception 
of what was false, with all his superficial criticism, a perception 
of what is now called humbug ; and it cannot be denied that, in a 
certain sense, he had a love of truth, but not of truth in its highest 
development, not of the positive, the affirmative, the real. Nega- 
tion and denial suited him better, and suited the age in which 
he lived better ; hence he was a " representative man," was 
an exponent of his age, and led the age. He hated the Jesuits, 
but chiefly because they advocated a blind authority ; and he 
strove to crush Christianity, because its professors so often were 
a disgrace to it, while its best members were martyrs and victims. 
Voltaire did not, like Helvetius, propose any new system of 
philosophy, but strove to make all systems absurd. He set the 
ball of Atheism in motion, and others followed in a bolder track ; 
pushed out, not his piinciples, for he had none, but his spirit, into 
the extreme of mockery and negation. And such a course 
unsettled the popular faith, both in religion and laws, and made 
men indifferent to the future, and to their moral obligations. 

Quite a different man was Rousseau. He was not a mocker, or 
a leveller, or a satirist, or an atheist. He resembled Voltaire 
only in one respect - — in egotism. He was not so learned as 
Voltaire, did not write so much, was not so highly honored or 
esteemed. But he had more genius, and exercised a greater 
influence on posterity. His influence was more subtle and more 
dangerous, for he led astray people of generous impulses and 
enthusiastic dispositions, with but little intelligence or experience. 
40* 



474 DIDEROT. [CHAP. XXX. 

He abounded in extravagant admiration of unsophisticated nature, 
professed to love the simple and earnest, affected extraordinary 
friendship and sympathy, and was most enthusiastic in his rhapso- 
dies of sentimental love. Voltaire had no cant, but Rousseau was 
full of it. Voltaire was the father of Danton, but Rousseau of 
Robespierre, that sentimental murderer who, as a judge, was too 
conscientious to hang a criminal, but sufficiently unscrupulous to 
destroy a king. The absurdities of Rousseau can be detected in 
the ravings of the ultra Transcendentalists, in the extravagance of 
Fourierism, in the mock philanthropy of such apostles of light as 
Eugene Sue and Louis Blanc. The whole mental and physical 
constitution of Rousseau was diseased, and his actions were 
strangely inconsistent with his sentiments. He gave the kiss of 
friendship, and it proved the token of treachery ; he expatiated on 
simplicity and earnestness in most bewitching language, but was 
a hypocrite, seducer, and liar. He was always breathing the 
raptures of affection, yet never succeeded in keeping a friend ; he 
was always denouncing the selfishness and vanity of the world, 
and yet was miserable without its rewards and praises ; no man 
was more dependent on society, yet no man ever professed to 
hold it in deeper contempt ; no man ever had a prouder spirit, yet 
no man ever affected a more abject humility. He dilated, with 
apparent rapture, on disinterested love, and yet left his own 
children to cold neglect and poverty. He poisoned the weak and 
the susceptible by pouring out streams of passion in eloquent and 
exciting language, under the pretence of unburdening his own 
soul and revealing his own sorrows. He was always talking about 
philanthropy and generosity, and yet seldom bestowed a charity. 
No man was ever more eloquent in paradox, or sublime in 
absurdity. He spent his life in gilding what is corrupt, and 
glossing over what is impure. The great moral effect of his 
writings was to make men commit crimes under the name of 
patriotism, and permit them to indulge in selfish passion under the 
name of love. 

But more powerful than either of these false prophets and 
guides, in immediate influence, was Diderot ; and with him the 
whole school of bold and avowed infidels, who united open athe- 
ism with a fierce democracy. The Encyclopedists professed 
to know eveiy thing, to explain every thing, and to teach every 



CHAP. XXX.] GENERAL INFLUENCE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS. 475 

thing", they discovered that there was no God, and taught that 
truth was a delusion, and virtue but a name. They were learned 
in mathematical, statistical, and physical science, but threw con- 
tempt on elevated moral wisdom, on the lessons of experience, 
and the eternal truths of divine revelation. They advocated 
changes, experiments, fomentations, and impracticable reforms. 
They preached a gospel of social rights, inflamed the people with 
disgust of their condition, and with the belief that wisdom and 
virtue resided, in the greatest perfection, with congregated masses. 

They incessantly boasted of the greatness of philosophy, and 
the obsolete character of Christianity. They believed that suc- 
cessive developments of human nature, without the aid of influences 
foreign to itself, would gradually raise society to a state of per- 
fection. What they could not explain by their logical formularies, 
they utterly discarded. They denied the reality of a God in 
heaven, and talked about the divinity of man on earth, especially 
when associated masses of the ignorant and brutal asserted what 
they conceived to be their rights. They made truth to reside, in 
its greatest lustre, with passionate majorities; and virtue, in its 
purest radiance, with felons and vagabonds, if affiliated into a 
great association. They flattered the people that they were wiser 
and better than any classes above them, that rulers were tyrants, 
the clergy were hypocrites, the oracles of former days mere fools 
and liars. To sum up, in few words, the French Encyclopedists, 
" they made Nature, in her outward manifestations, to be the 
foundation of all great researches, man to be but a mass of organi- 
zation, mind the development of our sensations, morality to con- 
sist in self-interest, and God to be but the diseased fiction of an 
unenlightened age. The whole intellect, being concentrated on 
the outward and material, gave rise, perhaps, to some improve- 
ments in physical science ; but religion was disowned, morality de- 
graded, and man made to be but the feeble link in the great chain 
of events by which Nature is inevitably accomplishing her blind 
designs." From such influences, what could we expect but 
infidelity, madness, anarchy, and crimes? 

The second cause of the French revolution was the diffusion of 
the ideas of democratic liberty. Rousseau was a republican in 
his politics, as he was a sentimentalist in religion. Thomas 



476 SUFFEKINGS OF THE PEOPLE. [CHAP. XXX. 

Paine's Age of Reason had a great influence on the French mind, 
as it also had on the English and American. Moreover, the apostles 
of liberty in France were much excited in view of the success of 
the American Revolution, and fancied that the words " popular 
liberty," " sovereignty of the people," the " rights of man," " lib- 
erty and equality," meant the same in America as they did when 
pronounced by a Parisian mob. The French people were unduly 
flattered, and made to believe, by the demagogues, that they were 
philosophers, and that they were as fit for liberty as the American 
nation itself. Moreover, it must be confessed that the people had 
really made considerable advances, and discovered that there was 
no right or justice in the oppressions under which they groaned. 
The exhortations of popular leaders and the example of American 
patriots prepared the people to make a desperate effort to shake 
off their fetters. What were rights, in the abstract, if they were 
to be ground down to the dust ? What a mockery was the watch- 
word of liberty and equality, if they were obliged to submit to a 
despotism which they knew to be, in the highest degree, oppressive 
and tyrannical ? 

Hence the real and physical evils which the people of France 
endured, had no small effect in producing the revolution. Abstract 
ideas prepared the way, and sustained the souls of the oppressed ; 
but the absolute burdens which they bore aroused them to resistance. 

These evils were so great, that general discontent prevailed 
among the middle and lower classes through the kingdom. The 
agricultural population was fettered by game laws and odious priv- 
ileges to the aristocracy. " Game of the most destructive kind, 
such as wild boars and herds of deer, were permitted to go at 
large through spacious districts, in order that the nobles might 
hunt as in a savage wilderness. Numerous edicts prohibited 
weeding, lest young partridges should be disturbed, and mowing 
of hay even, lest their eggs should be destroyed. Complaints 
for the infraction of these edicts were carried before courts where 
every species of oppression and fraud prevailed. Fines were 
imposed at every change of property and at every sale. The 
people were compelled to grind their corn at their landlord's mill, 
to press their grapes in his press, and bake their bread in his oven." 
In consequence of these feudal laws and customs, the people were 



CHAP. XXX.] DEGRADATION OF THE PEOPLE. 477 

very poor, their houses dark and comfortless, their dress ragged 
and miserable, their food coarse and scanty. Not half of the 
enormous taxes which they paid reached the royal treasury, or 
even the pockets of the great proprietors. Officers were indefi- 
nitely multiplied. The governing classes looked upon the people 
only to be robbed. Their cry was unheard in the courts of jus- 
tice, while the tear of sorrow was unnoticed amid the pageantry 
of the great, whose extravagance, insolence, and pride were only 
surpassed by the misery and degradation of those unfortunate 
beings on whose toils they lived. Justice was bought and sold 
like any other commodity, and the decisions of judges were in- 
fluenced by the magnitude of the bribes which were offered them. 
Besides feudal taxes, the clergy imposed additional burdens, 
and swarmed wherever there was plunder to be obtained. The 
people were so extravagantly taxed that it was no object to be 
frugal or industrious. Every thing beyond the merest necessaries 
of life was seized by various tax-gatherers. In England, severe 
as is taxation, three fourths of the produce of the land go to the 
farmer, while in France only one twelfth went to the poor peasant. 
Two thirds of his earnings went to the king. Nor was there any 
appeal from this excessive taxation, which ground down the middle 
and lower classes, while the clergy and the nobles were entirely 
exempted themselves. Nor did the rich proprietor live upon his 
estates. He was a non-resident, and squandered in the cities the 
money which was extorted from his dependents. He took no 
interest in the condition of the peasantry, with whom> he was not 
united by any common ties. Added to this oppression, the land- 
lord was cruel, haughty, and selfish ; and he irritated by his inso- 
lence as well as oppressed by his injustice. All situations in the 
army, the navy, the church, the court, the bench, and in diplo- 
macy were exclusively filled by the aristocracy, of whom there 
were one hundred and fifty thousand people — a class insolent, 
haughty, effeminate, untaxed ; who disdained useful employments, 
who sought to live by the labor of others, and who regarded those 
by whose toils they were enabled to lead lives of dissipation and 
pleasure, as ignoble minions, who were unworthy of a better des- 
tiny, and unfit to enjoy those rights which God designed should 
be possessed by the whole human race. 



478 DERANGEMENT OF FINANCES. [CHAP. XXX. 

The privileges and pursuits of the aristocratic class, from the 
king to a lieutenant ill his army, were another cause of revolution. 
Louis XV. squandered twenty million pounds sterling in pleasures 
too ignominious to be even named in the public accounts, and en- 
joyed almost absolute power. He could send any one in his domin- 
ions to rot in an ignominious prison, without a hearing or a trial. 
The odious lettre de cachet could consign the most powerful noble to 
a dungeon, and all were sent to prison who were offensive to govern- 
ment. The king's mistresses sometimes had the power of sending 
their enemies to prison without consulting the king. The lives 
and property of the people were at his absolute disposal, and he 
did not scruple to exercise his power with thoughtless, and some- 
times inhuman cruelty. 

But these evils would have ended only in disaffection, and hatred, 
and unsuccessful resistance, had not the royal finances been 
deranged. So long as the king and his ministers could obtain 
money, there was no immediate danger of revolution. So long 
as he could pay the army, it would, if decently treated, support an 
absolute throne. 

But the king at last found it difficult to raise a sufficient revenue 
for his pleasures and his wars. The annual deficit was one 
hundred and ninety million of francs a year. The greater the 
deficit, the greater was the taxation, which, of course, increased 
the popular discontent. 

Such was the state of things when Louis XVI. ascended the 
throne of Hugh Capet, ( 1774,) in his twentieth year, having mar- 
ried, four years before, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria The- 
resa, empress of Austria. He was grandson of Louis XV., who 
bequeathed to him a debt of four thousand millions of livres. 

The new king was amiable and moral, and would have ruled 
France in peaceful times, but was unequal to a revolutionary crisis. 
.." Of all the monarchs," says Alison, " of the Capetian line, he 
was the least able to stem, and yet the least likely to provoke, a 
revolution. The people were tired of the arbitrary powers of 
their monarch, and he was disposed to abandon them ; they were 
provoked at the expensive corruptions of the court, and he was 
both innocent in his manners, and ^inexpensive in his habits ; they 
demanded reformation in the administration of affairs, and he 



CHAP. XXX.] MAUREPAS TURCOT MALESHERBES. 479 

placed his chief glory in yielding to the public voice. His reign, 
from his accession to the throne to the meeting of the States Gen- 
eral, was nothing but a series of ameliorations, without calming 
the public effervescence. He had the misfortune to wish sincerely 
for the public good, without possessing the firmness necessary to 
secure it ; and with truth it may be said that reforms were more 
fatal to him than the continuance of abuses would have been to 
another sovereign." 

He made choice of Maurepas as his prime minister, an old 
courtier without talent, and who was far from comprehending the 
spirit of the nation or the genius of the times. He accustomed 
the king to half measures, and pursued a temporizing policy, ill 
adapted to revolutionary times. The discontents of the people 
induced the king to dismiss him, and Turgot, for whom the people 
clamored, became prime minister. He was an honest man, and 
contemplated important reforms, even to the abolition of feudal 
privileges and the odious lettres de cachet, which were of course 
opposed by the old nobility, and were not particularly agreeable 
to the sovereign himself. 

Malesherbes, a lawyer who adopted the views of Turgot, suc- 
ceeded him, and, had he been permitted, would have restored the 
rights of the people, and suppressed the lettres de cachet, reenacted 
the Edict of Nantes, and secured the liberty of the press. But 
he was not equal to the crisis, with all his integrity and just views, 
and Necker became financial minister. 

He was a native of Geneva, a successful banker, and a man 
who had won the confidence of the nation. He found means to 
restore the finances, and to defray the expenses of the American 
war. But he was equally opposed by the nobles, who wanted no 
radical reform, and he was not a man of sufficient talent to stem 
the current of revolution. Financial skill was certainly desirable, 
but no financiering could save the French nation on the eve of 
bankruptcy, with such vast expenditures as then were deemed 
necessary. The nobles indeed admitted the extent of the evils 
which existed, and descanted, on their hunting parties, in a strain 
of mock philanthropy, but would submit to no sacrifices them- 
selves, and Necker was compelled to resign. 

M. de Calonne took his place ; a man of ready invention, 



480 NECKER CALONNE. [CHAP. XXX. 

unscrupulous, witty, and brilliant. Self-confident and full of 
promises, he succeeded in imparting a gleam of sunshine, and 
pursued a plan directly the opposite to that adopted by Necker. 
He encouraged the extravagance of the court, derided the future, 
and warded off* pressing debts by contracting new ones. He 
pleased all classes by his captivating manners, brilliant conversa- 
tion, and elegant dress. The king, furnished with what money he 
wanted, forgot the burdens of the people, and the minister went 
on recklessly contracting new loans, and studiously concealing 
from the public the extent of the annual deficit. 

But such a policy could not long be adopted successfully, and the 
people were overwhelmed with amazement when it finally appeared 
that, since the retirement of Necker in 1781, Calonne had added 
sixteen hundred and forty-six millions of francs to the public debt. 
National bankruptcy stared every body in the face. It was neces- 
sary that an extraordinary movement should be made ; and Ca- 
lonne recommended the assembling of the Notables, a body com- 
posed chiefly of the nobility, clergy, and magistracy, with the 
hope that these aristocrats would consent to their own taxation. 

He was miserably mistaken. The Notables met, (1787,) the 
first time since the reign of Henry IV., and demanded the dismis- 
sal of the minister, who was succeeded by Brienne, Archbishop 
of Toulouse. 

He was a weak man, and owed his elevation to his influence 
with women. He won the queen by his pleasing conversation, 
but had no solid acquirements. Occupying one of the highest 
positions in his church, he yet threw himself into the arms of 
atheistical philosophers. A man so inconsistent and so light was 
not fit for his place. 

However, the Notables agreed to what they had refused to 
Calonne. They consented to a land tax, to the- stamp duty, to 
provincial assemblies, and to the suppression of the gratuitous 
service of vassals. These were papular measures, but were insuf- 
ficient. Brienne was under the necessity of proposing the impo- 
sition of new taxes. But the Parliament of Paris refused to regis- 
ter the edict. A struggle between the king and the parliament 
resulted : and the king, in order to secure the registration of new 
taxes, resorted to the bed of justice — the last stretch of his royal 
power. 



CHAP. XXX.] STATES GENERAL. 481 

During one of the meetings of the parliament, when the abuses 
and prodigality of the court were denounced, a member, punning 
upon the word etats, (statements,) exclaimed, " It is not statements 
but States General that we want." 

From that moment, nothing was thought of or talked about 
but the assembling of the States General ; to which the minister, 
from his increasing embarrassments, consented. Moreover, the 
court hoped, in view of the continued opposition of the parliament, 
that the Tiers Etat would defend the throne against the legal aris- 
tocracy. 

All classes formed great and extravagant expectations from the 
assembling of the States General, and all were doomed to disap- 
pointment, but none more than those who had most vehemently 
and enthusiastically called for its convocation. 

The Archbishop of Toulouse soon after retired, unable to stem 
the revolutionary current. But he contrived to make his own for- 
tune, by securing benefices to the amount of eight hundred thou- 
sand francs, the archbishopric of Sens, and a cardinal's hat. At 
his recommendation Necker was recalled. 

On Necker's return, he found only two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand francs in the royal treasury ; but the funds immediately rose 
thirty per cent., and he was able to secure the loans necessary to 
cany on the government, rich capitalists fearing that absolute 
ruin would result unless they came to his assistance. 

Then followed discussions in reference to the Tiers Etat, as to 
what the third estate really represented, and as to the number of 
deputies who should be called to the assembly of the States Gen- 
eral. " The Tiers Etat," said the Abbe Sieyes, in an able pam- 
phlet, " is the French nation, minus the noblesse and the clergy." 

It was at last decided that the assembly should be at least one 
thousand, and that the number of deputies should equal the repre- 
sentatives of the nobles and clergy. The elections were carelessly 
conducted, and all persons, decently dressed, were allowed to vote. 
Upwards of three millions of electors determined the choice of 
deputies. Necker conceded too much, and opened the flood-gates 
of revolution. He had no conception of the storm which was to 
overwhelm the throne. 

On the 4th of May, 1789, that famous Assembly, which it was 
41 



482 THE TIERS ETAT. [CHAP. XXX. 

hoped would restore prosperity to France, met with great pomp in 
the cathedral church of Notre Dame, and the Bishop of Nanci 
delivered the sermon, and, the next day, the assembly was opened 
in the hall prepared for the occasion. The king was seated on a 
magnificent throne, the nobles and the clergy on both sides of the 
hall, and the third estate at the farther end. Louis XVI. pro- 
nounced a speech full of disinterested sentiments, and Necker 
read a report in reference to the state of the finances. 

The next day, the deputies of the Tiers Etat were directed to 
the place allotted to them, which was the common hall. The 
nobles and clergy repaired to a separate hall. It was their inten- 
tion, especially in view of the great number of the deputies, to 
deliberate in distinct halls. But the deputies insisted upon the 
three orders deliberating together in the same room. Angry dis- 
cussions and conferences took place. But there was not sufficient 
union between the nobles and the clergy, or sufficient energy on 
the part of the court. There happened also to be some bold and 
revolutionary spirits among the deputies, and they finally resolved, 
by a majority of four hundred and ninety-one to ninety, to assume 
the title of National Assembly, and invited the members of the 
other chamber to join them. They erected themselves into a sov- 
ereign power, like the Long Parliament of Charles I., disregarding 
both the throne and the nobility. 

Some of the most resolute of the nobles urged the king to adopt 
vigorous measures against the usurpation of the third estate ; but 
he was timid and irresolute. 

The man who had, at that time, the greatest influence in the 
National Assembly was Mirabeau, a man of noble birth, but who 
had warmly espoused the popular side. He was disagreeable in 
his features, licentious in his habits, and a bankrupt in reputation, 
but a man of commanding air, of great abilities, and unrivalled 
eloquence. His picture has been best painted by Carlyle, both in 
his essays and his history of the revolution. 

The National Assembly contained many great men, who would 
never have been heard of in quiet times ; some of great virtues 
and abilities, and others of the most violent revolutionary princi- 
ples. There were also some of the nobility, who joined them, not 
anticipating the evils which were to come. Among them were the 



CHAP. XXX.] COMMOTIONS. 483 

Dukes of Orleans, Rochefoucault, and Liancourt, Count Lally 
Tollendal, the two brothers Lameth, Clermont Tonnerre, and the 
-Marquis de La Fayette, all of whom were guillotined or exiled 
during the revolution. 

The discussions in the Assembly did not equal the tumults of 
the people. All classes were intoxicated with excitement, and 
believed that a new era was to take place on earth ; that all the 
evils which afflicted society were to be removed, and a state of 
unbounded liberty, plenty, and prosperity, was about to take place. 

In the midst of the popular ferments, the regiment of guards, 
comprising three thousand six hundred men, revolted ; immense 
bodies of workmen assembled together, and gave vent to the most 
inflammatory language ; the Hotel of the Invalids was captured ; 
fifty thousand pikes were forged and distributed among the people ; 
the Bastile was stormed ; and military massacres commenced. 
Soon after, the tricolored cockade was adopted, the French guards 
were suppressed by the Assembly, the king and his family were 
brought to Paris by a mob, and the Club of the Jacobins was 
established. Before the year 1789 was ended, the National As- 
sembly was the supreme power in France, and the king had 
become a shadow and a mockery ; or, rather, it should be said that 
there was no authority in France but what emanated from the peo- 
ple, and no power remained to suppress popular excesses and 
insurrections. The Assembly published proclamations against acts 
of violence ; but it was committed in a contest with the crown and 
aristocracy, and espoused the popular side. A famine, added to 
other horrors, set in at Paris ; and the farmers, fearing that their 
grain would be seized, no longer brought it to market. Manufac- 
tures of all kinds were suspended, and the public property was 
confiscated to supply the immediate wants of a starving and infu- 
riated people. A state was rapidly hastening to universal violence, 
crime, misery, and despair. 

The year 1790 opened gloomily, and no one could tell when the 
agitating spirit would cease, or how far it would be carried, for the 
mob of Paris was rapidly engrossing the power of the state. One 
of the first measures of the Assembly was to divest the provinces 
of France of their ancient privileges, since they were jealous of 
the sovereignty exercised by the Assembly, and to divide the king- 



484 RULE OF THE PEOPLE. [CHAP. XXX. 

dom into eighty-four new departments, nearly equal in extent and 
population. A criminal tribunal was established for each depart- 
ment, and a civil court for each of the districts into which the 
department was divided. The various officers and magistrates 
were elected by the people, and the qualification for voting was a 
contribution to the amount of three days' labor. By this great 
step, the whole civil force in the kingdom was placed at the dispo- 
sal of the lower classes. They had the nomination of the munici- 
pality, and the control of the military, and the appointment of 
judges, deputies, and officers of the National Guard. Forty-eight 
thousand communes, or municipalities, exercised all the rights of 
sovereignty, and hardly any appointment was left to the crown. 
A complete democratic constitution was made, which subverted the 
ancient divisions of the kingdom, and all those prejudices and 
interests which had been nursed for centuries. The great exten- 
sion of the electoral franchise introduced into the Assembly a class 
of men who were prepared to make the most impracticable 
changes, and commit the most violent excesses. 

The next great object of the Assembly was the regulation of the 
finances. Further taxation was impossible, and the public neces- 
sities were great. The revenue had almost failed, and the national 
debt had alarmingly increased, — twelve hundred millions in less 
than three years. The capitalists would advance nothing, and 
voluntary contributions had produced but a momentary relief. 
Under these circumstances, the spoliation of the church was 
resolved, and Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, was the first to pro- 
pose the confiscation of the property of his order. The tempta- 
tion was irresistible to an infidel and revolutionary assembly ; for 
the church owned 1 nearly one half of the whole landed property 
of the kingdom. Several thousand millions of francs were confis- 
cated, and the revenues of the clergy reduced to one fifth of their 
former amount. 

This violent measure led to another. There was no money to 
pay for the great estates which the Assembly wished to sell. The 
municipalities of the large cities became the purchasers, and gave 
promissory notes to the public creditors until payment should be 
made ; supposing that individuals would buy in small portions. 
Sales not being effected by the municipalities, as was expected, 



CHAP. XXX.] NATIONAL FEDERATION. 485 

and payment becoming due, recourse was had to government bills. 
Thus arose the system of Assignats, which were issued to a great 
amount on the security of the church lands, and which resulted in 
a paper circulation, and the establishment of a vast body of small 
landholders, whose property sprung out of the revolution, and 
whose interests were identified with it. The relief, however great, 
was momentary. New issues were made at every crisis, until 
the overissue alarmed the reflecting portion of the community, 
and assignats depreciated to a mere nominal value. At the close 
of the year, the credit of the nation was destroyed, and the pre- 
cious metals were withdrawn, in a great measure, from circulation. 

Soon after, the assembly abolished all titles of nobility, changed 
the whole judicial system, declared its right to make peace and 
war, and established the National Guard, by which three hundred 
thousand men were enrolled in support of revolutionary measures. 

On the 14th of July, the anniversary of the capture of the Bas- 
tile, was the celebrated National Federation, when four hundred 
thousand persons repaired to the Champ de Mars, to witness the 
king, his ministers, the assembly, and the public functionaries, 
take the oath to the new constitution ; the greatest mockery of the 
whole revolution, although a scene of unparalleled splendor. 

Towards the close of the year, an extensive emigration of the 
nobles took place ; a great blunder on their part, since their estates 
were immediately confiscated, and since the forces left to support 
the throne were much diminished. The departure of so many 
distinguished persons, however, displeased the Assembly, and pro- 
posals were made to prevent it. But Mirabeau, who, until this 
time, had supported the popular side, now joined the throne, and 
endeavored to save it. His popularity was on the decline, 1 when a 
natural death relieved him from a probable execution. He had 
contributed to raise the storm, but he had not the power to allay it. 
He exerted his splendid abilities to arrest the revolution, whose 
consequences, at last, he plainly perceived. But in vain. His 
death, however, was felt as a public calamity, and all Paris assem- 
bled to see his remains deposited, with extraordinary pomp, in the 
Pantheon, by the side of Des Cartes. Had he lived, he might 
possibly have saved the lives of the king and queen, but he could 
not have prevented the revolution. 
41* 



486 FLIGHT OF THE KING. [CHAP. XXX. 

Soon after, the royal family, perceiving, too late, that they were 
mere prisoners in th€ Tuileries, undertook to escape, and fly to 
Coblentz, where the great body of emigrants resided. The unfor- 
tunate king contrived to reach Varennes, was recognized, and 
brought back to Paris. But the National Assembly made a blun- 
der in not permitting him to escape ; for it had only to declare the 
throne vacant by his desertion, and proceed to institute a republi- 
can government. The crime of regicide might have been avoided, 
and further revolutionary excesses prevented. But his return 
increased the popular ferments, and the clubs demanded his head. 
He was suspended from his functions, and a guard placed over 
his person. 

On the 29th of September, 1791, the Constituent Assembly 
dissolved itself; having, during the three years of its existence, 
enacted thirteen hundred and nine laws and decrees relative to 
the general administration of the state. It is impossible, even 
now, to settle the question whether it did good or ill, on the whole ; 
but it certainly removed many great and glaring evils, and enact- 
ed many wise laws. It abolished torture, the lettres de cachet, 
the most oppressive duties, the privileges of the nobility, and feudal 
burdens. It established a uniform system of jurisprudence, the 
National Guards, and an equal system of finance. " It opened the 
army to men of merit, and divided the landed property of the 
aristocracy among the laboring classes ; which, though a violation 
of the rights of property, enabled the nation to bear the burdens 
which were subsequently imposed, and to prosper under the evils 
connected with national bankruptcy, depreciated assignats, the 
Reign of Terror, the conscription of Napoleon, and the subjuga- 
tion of Europe. 1 ' 

The Legislative Assembly, composed of inexperienced men, 
— country attorneys and clerks for the most part, among whom 
there were not fifty persons possessed of one hundred pounds 
a year, — took the place of the Constituent Assembly, and opened 
its sittings on the 1st of October. 

In the first assembly there was a large party attached to royal 
and aristocratical interests, and many men of great experience 
and talents. But in the second nearly all were in favor of revolu- 
tionary principles. They only differed in regard to the extent to 
which revolution should be carried. 



CHAP. XXX.] THE GIRONDISTS AND THE JACOBINS. 487 

The members of the right were called the Feuillants, from the 
club which formed the centre of their power, and were friends of 
the constitution, or the limited monarchy which the Constituent 
Assembly had established. The national guard, the magistrates, 
and all the constituted authorities, were the supporters of this party. 

The Girondists, comprehending the more respectable of the 
republicans, and wishing to found the state on the model of 
antiquity, formed a second party, among whom were numbered 
the ablest men in the assembly. Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, 
Guadet, and Isnard, were among the leading members. 

There was also a third party, headed by Chabot, Bazin, and 
Merlin, which was supported by the clubs of the Jacobins and the 
Cordeliers. The great oracles of the Jacobins were Robespierre, 
Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois ; while the leaders of the Corde- 
liers were Danton and Desmoulins. Robespierre was excluded, 
as were others of the last assembly, from the new one, by a sort 
of self-denying ordinance which he himself had proposed. His 
influence, at that time, was immense, from the extravagance of his 
opinions, the vehemence of his language, and the reputation he 
had acquired for integrity. 

Between these three parties there were violent contentions, and 
the struggle for ascendency soon commenced, to end in the com- 
plete triumph of the Jacobinical revolutionists. 

In the mean time, the restrictions imposed on the king, who 
still enjoyed the shadow of authority, the extent of popular excesses, 
and the diffusion of revolutionary principles, induced the leading 
monarchs of Europe to confederate together, in order to suppress 
disturbances in France. In July, the Emperor Leopold appealed 
to the sovereigns of Europe to unite for the deliverance of Louis 
XVI. Austria collected her troops, the emigrants at Coblentz 
made warlike demonstrations, and preparations were made for a 
contest, which, before it was finished, proved the most bloody and 
extensive which has desolated the world since the fall of the 
Roman empire. 

The Constituent Assembly rejected with disdain the dictation 
of the various European powers ; and the new ministry, of which 
Dumourier and Roland were the most prominent members, pre- 
pared for war. All classes in France were anxious for it, and it 



4S8 THE NATIONAL CONVENTION. [CHAP. XXX. 

was soon declared. On the 25th of July, the Duke of Brunswick, 
with an army of oneiiundred and forty-eight thousand Prussians, 
Austrians, and Hessians, entered the French territory. The spirit 
of resistance animated all classes, and the ardor of the multitude 
was without a parallel. The manifesto of the allied powers indi- 
cated the dispositions of the court and emigrants. Revolt against 
the throne now seemed necessary, in order to secure the liberty of 
the people, who now had no choice between victory and death. 
On the 25th of July, the Marseillais arrived in Paris, and aug- 
mented the strength and confidence of the insurgents. Popular 
commotions increased, and the clubs became unmanageable. On 
the 10th of August, the tocsin sounded, the generale beat in every 
quarter of Paris, and that famous insurrection took place which 
overturned the throne. The Hotel de Ville was seized by the 
insurgents, the Tuileries was stormed, and the Swiss guards were 
massacred. The last chance for the king to regain his power was 
lost, and Paris was in the hands of an infuriated mob. 

The confinement of the king in the Temple, the departure of 
the foreign ambassadors, the flight of emigrants, the confiscation 
of their estates, the massacres in the prisons, the sack of palaces, 
the fall and flight of La Fayette, and the dissolution of the Legis- 
lative Assembly, rapidly succeeded. 

On the 21st of September, the National Convention was opened, 
and was composed of the most violent advocates of revolution. 
It was ruled by those popular orators who had the greatest influ- 
ence in the clubs. The most influential of these leaders were 
Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. Danton was the hero of the 
late insurrection ; was a lawyer, a man of brutal courage, the 
slave of sensual passions, and the idol of the Parisian mob. He 
was made minister of justice, and was the author of the subse- 
quent massacres in the prisons. But, with all his ferocity, he was 
lenient to individuals, and recommended humanity after the period 
of danger had passed. 

Marat was a journalist, president of the Jacobin Club, a member 
of the convention, and a violent advocate of revolutionary ex- 
cesses. His bloody career was prematurely cut off by the hand 
of a heroine, Charlotte Corday, who offered up her own life to rid 
the country of the greatest monster which the annals of crime 
have consigned to an infamous immortality. 



CHAP. XXX.] MARAT DANTON ROBESPIERRE. 489 

Robespierre was a sentimentalist, and concealed, under the 
mask of patriotism and • philanthropy, an insatiable ambition, in- 
ordinate vanity, and implacable revenge. He was above the 
passion of money, and, when he had at his disposal the lives and 
fortunes of his countrymen, lived upon a few francs a day. It is 
the fashion to deny to him any extraordinary talent ; but that he 
was a man of domineering will, of invincible courage, and austere 
enthusiasm appears from nearly all the actions of his hateful 
career. 

It was in the midst of the awful massacre in the prisons, where 
more than five thousand perished to appease the infatuated 
vengeance of the Parisian mob, that the National Convention 
commenced its sittings. 

Its first measure was, to abolish the monarchy, and proclaim 
a republic ; the next, to issue new assignats. The two preceding 
assemblies had authorized the fabrication of twenty-seven hundred 
millions of francs, and the Convention added millions more on 
the security of the national domains. On the 7th of November, 
the trial of the king was decreed; and, on the 11th of December, 
his examination commenced. On his appearance at the bar of 
the Convention, the president, Barrere, said, " Louis, the French 
nation accuses you ; you- are about to hear the charges that are 
to be preferred. Louis, be seated." 

The charges consisted of the whole crimes of the revolution, to 
which he replied with dignity, simplicity, and directness. ' He was 
defended, in the mock trial, by Deseze, Trochet, and Malesherbes ; 
but his blood was demanded, and the assembly unanimously pro- 
nounced the condemnation of their king. That seven hundred men, 
with all the natural differences of opinion, could be found to do this, 
shows the excess of revolutionary madness. On the 20th of Jan- 
uary, Santerre appeared in the royal prison, and read the sentence 
of death ; and only three days were allowed the king to prepare for 
the last hour of anguish. On the 24th of January, he mounted 
the scaffold erected between the garden of the Tuileries and the 
Champs Elysees, and the fatal axe separated his head from his 
body. His remains were buried in the ancient cemetery of the 
xMadeleine, over which Napoleon commenced, after the battle of 
Jena, a splendid temple of glory, but which was not finished until 



490 GENERAL WAK. [CHAP. XXX. 

the restoration of the Bourbons, who converted it into the beautiful 
church which bears the name of the ancient cemetery. The spot 
where Louis XVI. offered up his life, in expiation of the crimes of 
his ancestors, is now marked by the colossal obelisk of red granite, 
which the French government, in 1831, brought from Egypt, a 
monument which has witnessed the march of Cambyses, and may 
survive the glory of the French nation itself. 

The martyrdom of Louis XVI. was the signal for a general war. 
All the powers of Europe united to suppress the power and the 
principles of the French revolutionists. The Convention, after 
declaring war against England, Holland, Spain, Austria, Prussia, 
Portugal, the Two Sicilies, the Roman States, Sardinia, and Pied- 
mont, — all of which had combined together, — ordered a levy 
of three hundred thousand men, instituted a military tribunal, and 
imposed a forced loan on the rich of one thousand millions, and 
prepared to defend the principles of liberty and the soil of France. 
The enthusiasm of the French was unparalleled, and the energies 
put forth were most remarkable. Patriotism and military ardor 
were combined, and measures such as only extraordinary necessi- 
ties require were unhesitatingly adopted. 

A Committee of Public Safety was appointed, and the dictator- 
ship of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre commenced, marked by 
great horrors and barbarities, but signalized by wonderful successes 
in war, and by exertions which, under common circumstances, 
would be scarcely credited. 

This committee was composed of twenty-five persons at first, 
and twelve afterwards ; but Robespierre and Marat were the 
leading members. The committee assigned to ruling Jacobins the 
different departments of the government. St. Just was intrusted 
with the duty of denouncing its enemies ; Couthon for bringing for- 
ward its general measures ; Billaud Varennes and Collot d'Her- 
bois with the management of departments ; Carnot was made 
minister of war ; and Robespierre general dictator. This com- 
mittee, though required to report to the Convention, as the supreme 
authority, had really all the power of government. " It named and 
dismissed generals, judges, and juries ; brought forward all public 
measures in the Convention ; ruled provinces and armies ; controlled 
the Revolutionary Tribunal ; and made requisitions of men and 



CHAP. XXX.] REIGN OF TERROR. 491 

money ; and appointed revolutionary committees, which sprung up 
in every part of the kingdom to the frightful number of fifty thou- 
sand. It was the object of the Committee of Public Safety to 
destroy all who opposed the spirit of the most violent revolutionaiy 
measures. Marat declared that two hundred and sixty thousand 
heads must fall before freedom was secure ; the revolutionary 
committees discovered that seven hundred thousand persons must 
be sacrificed." 

Then commenced the Reign of Terror, when all the prisons of 
France were filled with victims, who were generally the most 
worthy people in the community, and whose only crime was in 
being obnoxious to the reigning powers. Those who were sus- 
pected fled, if possible, but were generally unable to carry away 
their property. Millions of property was confiscated ; the prisons 
were crowded with the rich, the elegant, and the cultivated classes ; 
thousands were guillotined ; and universal anarchy and fear 
reigned without a parallel. Deputies, even those who had been 
most instrumental in bringing on the Revolution, were sacrificed 
by the triumphant Jacobins. Women and retired citizens were 
not permitted to escape their fear and vengeance. Marie Antoi- 
nette, and the Princess Elizabeth, and Madame Roland, were 
among the first victims. Then followed the executions of Bailly, 
Mayor of Paris ; Barnave, one of the most eloquent and upright 
members of the Constituent Assembly ; Dupont Dutertre, one of 
the ministers of Louis XVI. ; Lavoisier, the chemist ; Condorcet, 
the philosopher; General Custine ; and General Houchard ; all 
of whom had been the allies of the present dominant party. The 
Duke of Orleans, called Egalite, who had supported the revolt of 
the 10th of August, and had voted for the execution of the king, 
shared the fate of Louis XVI. He was the father of Louis Philippe, 
and, of all the victims of the revolution, died the least lamented. 

The " Decemvirs " had now destroyed the most illustrious advo- 
cates of constitutional monarchy and of republican liberty. The 
slaughter of their old friends now followed. The first victim was 
Danton himself, who had used his influence to put a stop to the 
bloody executions which then disgraced the country, and had 
recognized the existence of a God and the rights of humanity. 
For such sentiments he was denounced and executed, together with 



492 DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE. [CHAP. XXX. 

Camille, Desmoulins, and Lacroix, who perished because they 
were less wicked th^n their associates. Finally, the anarchists 
themselves fell before the storm which they had raised, and 
Hebert, Gobet, Clootz, and Vincent died amid the shouts of general 
execration. The Committee of Public Safety had now all things 
in their own way, and, in their iron hands, order resumed its sway 
from the influence of terror. " The history of the world has no 
parallel to the horrors of that long night of suffering, because it has 
no parallel to the guilt which preceded it ; tyranny never assumed 
so hideous a form, because licentiousness never required so severe 
a punishment." 

The Committee of Public Safety, now confident of its strength, 
decreed the disbanding of the revolutionary army, raised to over- 
awe the capital, and the dissolution of all the popular societies 
which did not depend on the Jacobin Club, and devoted all their 
energies to establish their power. But death was the means which 
they took to secure it, and two hundred thousand victims filled the 
prisons of France. 

At last, fear united the members of the Convention, and they 
resolved to free the country of the great tyrant who aimed at the 
suppression of all power but his own. " Do not flatter your- 
selves," said Tallien to the Girondists, " that he will spare you, 
for you have committed an unpardonable offence in being free- 
men." " Do you still live ? " said he to the Jacobins ; " in a few 
days, he will have your heads, if you do not take his." All par- 
ties in the assembly resolved to overthrow their common enemy. 
Robespierre, the chief actor of the bloody tragedy, Dumas, the 
president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Henriot, the commander 
of the National Guard, Couthon and St. Just, the tools of the 
tyrant, were denounced, condemned, and executed. The last 
hours of Robespierre were horrible beyond description. When 
he was led to execution, the blood flowed from his broken jaw, 
his face was deadly pale, and he uttered yells of agony, which 
filled all hearts with terror. But one woman, nevertheless, pene- 
trated the crowd which surrounded him, exclaiming, " Murderer 
of my kindred ! your agony fills me with joy ; descend to hell, 
covered with the curses of every mother in France." 

Thus terminated the Reign of Terror, during which, nearly 



CHAP. XXX.] NEW CONSTITUTION. 493 

nineteen thousand persons were guillotined ; and among these 
were over two thousand nobles and one thousand priests, besides 
eleven millions of other persons, by war or the axe, in other parts 
of France. 

But vigorous measures had been adopted to carry on the war 
against united Christendom. No less than two hundred and eighty 
thousand men were in the field, on the part of the allies, from 
Basle to Dunkirk. TouJon and Lyons had raised the standard 
of. revolt, Mayence gave the invaders a passage into the heart 
of the kingdom, while sixty thousand insurgents in La Vendee 
threatened to encamp under the walls of Paris. But under the 
exertions of the Committee, and especially of Carnot, the min- 
ister of war, still greater numbers were placed under arms, 
France was turned into an immense workshop of military prepa- 
rations, and the whole property of the state, by means of confis- 
cations and assignats, put at the disposal of the government. The 
immense debts of the government were paid in paper money, 
while conscription filled the ranks with all the youth of the state. 
Added to all this force which the government had at its disposal, 
it must be remembered that the army was burning with enthusi- 
astic dreams of liberty, and of patriotism, and of glory. No 
wonder that such a nation of soldiers and enthusiasts should have 
been able to resist the armies of united Christendom. 

On the death of Robespierre, (July, 1794,) a great reaction 
succeeded the Reign of Terror. His old associates and tools were 
executed or transported, the club of the Jacobins was closed, the 
Revolutionary Tribunals were suppressed, the rebellious foubourgs 
were subdued, the National Guard was reorganized, and a new 
constitution was formed. 

The constitution of 1798, framed under different influences, 
established the legislative power among two councils, — that of the 
Five Hundred, and that of the Ancients* The former was in- 
trusted with the power of originating laws ; the latter had the power 
to reject or pass them. The executive power was intrusted to five 
persons, called Directors, who were nominated by the Council of 
Five Hundred, and approved by that of the Ancients. Each 
individual was to be president by rotation during three months, 
and a new director was to be chosen every year. The Directory 
42 



494 THE DIRECTORY. [CHAP. XXX. 

had the entire disposal of the army, the finances, the appointment 
of public functionaries^ and the management of public negotiations. 

But there were found powerful enemies to the new constitution. 
Paris was again agitated. The National Guard took part with the 
disaffected, and the Convention, threatened and perplexed, sum- 
moned to its aid a body of five thousand regular troops. The 
National Guard mustered in great strength, to the number of thirty 
thousand men, and resolved to overawe the Convention, which 
was likened to the Long Parliament in the times of Cromwell. The 
Convention intrusted Barras with its defence, and he demanded, 
as_ his second in command, a young officer of artillery who had 
distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon. By his advice, a 
powerful train of artillery was brought to Paris by a lieutenant 
called Murat. On the 4th of October, 1795, the whole neigh- 
borhood of the Tuileries resembled an intrenched camp. The 
commander of the Convention then waited the attack of the insur- 
gents, and the action soon commenced. Thirty thousand men 
surrounded the little army of six thousand, who defended the Con- 
vention and the cause of order and law. Victory inclined to the 
regular troops, who had the assistance of artillery, and, above all, 
who were animated by the spirit of their intrepid leader — Napo- 
leon Bonaparte. The insurgents were not a rabble, but the flower 
of French citizens ; but they were forced to yield to superior 
military skill, and the reign of the military commenced. 

Thus closed what is technically called the French Revolution ; 
the most awful political hurricane in the annals of modern civil- 
ized nations. It closed, nominally, with the accession of the 
Directory to power, but really with the accession of Napoleon ; 
for, shortly after, his victories filled the eyes of the French nation, 
and astonished the whole world. 

It is impossible to pronounce on the effects of this great Revo- 
lution, since a sufficient time has not yet elapsed for us to form 
healthy judgments. We are accustomed to associate with some 
of the actors every thing that is vile and monstrous in human nature. 
But unmitigated monsters rarely appear on earth. The same men 
who excite our detestation, had they lived in quiet times might 
have been respected. Even Robespierre might have retained an 
honorable name to his death, as an upright judge. But the French 



CHAP. XXX.] REFLECTIONS. 495 

mind was deranged. New ideas had turned the brains of enthu- 
siasts. The triumph of the abstract principles of justice seemed 
more desirable than the preservation of human life. The sense 
of injury and wrong was too vivid to allow heated partisans to 
make allowances for the common infirmities of man. The enthu- 
siasts in liberty could not see in Louis XVI. any thing but the em- 
blem of tyranny in the worst form. They fancied that they could 
regenerate society by their gospel of social rights, and they over- 
valued the Virtues of the people. But, above all, they over-esti- 
mated themselves, and placed too light a value on the imperishable 
principles of revealed religion ; a religion which enjoins patience 
and humility, as well as encourages the spirit of liberty and prog- 
ress. But whatever may have been their blunders and crimes, 
and however marked the providence of God in overruling them 
for the ultimate good of Europe, still, all contemplative men be- 
hold in the Revolution the retributive justice of the Almighty, in 
humiliating a proud family of princes, and punishing a vain and 
oppressive nobility for the evils they had inflicted on society. 



References. -Alison's History of the French Revolution, marked by 
his English prejudices, heavy in style, and inaccurate in many of his facts, 
yet lofty, temperate, and profound. Thiers's History is more lively, and 
takes different views. Carlyle's work is extremely able, but the most 
difficult to read of all his works, in consequence of his affected and 
abominable style. Lamartine's History of the Girondists is sentimental, 
but pleasing and instructive. Mignet's History is also a standard. Lacre- 
telle's Histoire de France, and the Memoirs of Mirabeau, Necker, and Robes- 
pierre should be read. Carlyle's Essays on Mirabeau and Danton are 
extremely able. Burke's Reflections should be read by all who wish to 
have the most vivid conception of the horrors of the awful event which he 
deprecated. The Annual Register should, be consulted. For a general 
list of authors who have written on this period, see Alison's index of 
writers, prefixed to his great work, but which are too numerous to be 
mentioned here. 






496 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [CHAP. XXXI. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 

Mr. Alison has found it necessary to devote ten large octavo 
volumes to the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte ; nor can the 
varied events connected with his brilliant career be satisfactorily- 
described in fewer volumes. The limits of this work will not, how- 
ever, permit a notice extending beyond a few pages. Who, then, 
even among those for whom this History is especially designed, 
will be satisfied with our brief review ? But only a brief allusion 
to very great events can be made ; for it is preposterous to attempt 
to condense the life of the greatest actor on the stage of real 
tragedy in a single chapter. And yet there is a uniformity in 
nearly all of the scenes in which he appears. The history of 
war is ever the same — the exhibition of excited passions, of rest- 
less ambition, of dazzling spectacles of strife, pomp, and glory. 
Pillage, oppression, misery, crime, despair, ruin, and death — 
such are the evils necessarily attendant on all war, even glorious 
war, when men fight for their homes, for their altars, or for great 
ideas. The details of war are exciting, but painful. We are 
most powerfully reminded of our, degeneracy, of our misfortunes, 
of the Great Destroyer. The " Angel Death " appears before us, 
in grim terrors, punishing men for crimes. But while war is so 
awful, and attended with all the evils of which we can conceive, 
or which it is the doom of man to suffer, yet warriors are not 
necessarily the enemies of mankind. They are the instruments 
of the Almighty to scourge a wicked world, or to bring, out of 
disaster and suffering, great and permanent blessings to the 
human race. 

Napoleon is contemplated by historians in both those lights. 
The English look upon him, generally, as an ambitious usurper, 
who aimed to erect a universal empire upon universal ruin ; as an 
Alexander, a Caesar, an Attila, a Charles XII. The French nation 
regard him almost as a deity, as a messenger of good, as a great 



CHAP. XXXI.] CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON. 497 

conqueror, who fought for light and freedom. But he was not the 
worst or the best of warriors. His extraordinary and astonishing 
energies were called into exercise by the circumstances of the 
times ; and he, taking advantage of both ideas and circumstances, 
attempted to rear a majestic throne, and advance the glory of the 
country, of which he made himself the absolute ruler. His 
nature was not sanguinary, or cruel, or revengeful; but few con- 
querors have ever committed crimes on a greater scale, or were 
more unscrupulous in using any means, lawful or unlawful, to 
accomplish a great end. Napoleon had enlightened views, and 
wished to advance the real interests of the French nation, but not 
until he had climbed to the summit of power, and realized all 
those dreams which a most inordinate ambition had excited. He 
doubtless rescued his country from the dangers which menaced it 
from foreign invasion ; but his conquests and his designs led to 
still greater combinations, and these, demanding for their support 
the united energies of Christendom, deluged the world with blood. 
Napoleon, to an extraordinary degree, realized the objects to which 
he had aspired ; but these were not long enjoyed, and he was 
hurled from his throne of grandeur and of victory, to impress the 
world, which he mocked and despised, of the vanity of military 
glory and the dear-earned trophies of the battle field. No man 
was ever permitted by Providence to accomplish so much mis- 
chief, and yet never mortal had more admirers than he, and never 
were the opinions of the wise more divided in regard to the effects 
of his wars. A painful and sad recital may be made of the deso- 
lations he caused, so that Alaric, in comparison, would seem but a 
common robber, while, at the same time, a glorious eulogium 
might be justly made of the many benefits he conferred upon 
mankind. The good and the evil are ever combined in all great 
characters ; but the evil and the good are combined in him in such 
vast proportions, that he seems either a monster of iniquity, or an 
object of endless admiration. There are some characters which 
the eye of the mind can survey at once, as the natural eye can 
take in the proportions of a small but singular edifice ; but Napo- 
leon was a genius and an actor of such wonderful greatness and 
majesty, both from his natural talents and the great events which 
he controlled, that he rises before us, when we contemplate him, 
42* 



498 EAKLY DAYS OF NAPOLEON. [CHAP. XXXI. 

like some vast pyramid or some majestic cathedral, which the eye 
can survey only in details. Our age is not sufficiently removed 
from the times in which he lived, we are' too near the object of 
vision, to pronounce upon the general effect of his character, and 
only prejudiced or vain persons would attempt to do so. He must 
remain for generations simply an object of awe, of wonder, of 
dread, of admiration, of hatred, or of love. 

Nor can we condense the events of his life any more than we 
can analyze his character and motives. We do not yet know 
their relative importance. In the progress of ages, some of them 
will stand out more beautiful and more remarkable, and some will 
be entirely lost sight of. Thousands of books will waste away as 
completely as if they were burned, like the Alexandrian library ; 
and a future age may know no more of the details of Napoleon's 
battles than we now know of Alexander's marches. But the main 
facts can never be lost; something will remain, enough to " point 
a moral or adorn a tale." The object of all historical knowledge 
is moral wisdom, and this we may learn from narratives as brief 
as the stories of Joseph and Daniel, or the accounts which Tacitus 
has left us of the lives of the Roman tyrants. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, the 15th of August, 
1769, of respectable parents, and was early sent to a royal mili- 
tary school at Brienne. He was not distinguished for any attain- 
ments, except in mathematics ; he was studious, reserved, and 
cold ; he also exhibited an inflexible will, the great distinguishing 
quality of his mind. At the age of fourteen, in view of superior 
attainments, he was removed to the military school at Paris, and, 
at the age of seventeen, received his commission as second lieuten- 
ant in a regiment of artillery. 

When the Revolution broke out, Toulon, one of the arsenals of 
France, took a more decided part in favor of the king and the 
constitution than either Marseilles or Lyons, and invited the 
support of the English and Spanish squadrons. The Committee 
of Public Safety resolved to subdue the city ; and Napoleon, even 
at that time a brigadier-general, with the command of the artillery 
at the siege, recommended a course which led to the capture of 
that important place. 

For his distinguished services and talents, he was appointed sec- 



CHAP. XXXI.] EARLY SERVICES TO THE REPUBLIC. 499 

ond in command, by the National Convention, when that body was 
threatened and overawed by the rebellious National Guard. He 
saved the state and defended the constitutional authorities, for 
which service he was appointed second in command of the great 
army of the interior, and then general-in-chief in the place of 
Barras, who found his new office as director incompatible with the 
duties of a general. 

The other directors who now enjoyed the supreme command 
were Reubel, Lareveillere-Lepeaux, Le Tourneur, and Carnot. 
Sieyes, a man of great genius, had been elected, but had declined. 
Among these five men, Carnot was the only man of genius, and 
it was through his exertions that France, under the Committee of 
Public Safety, had been saved from the torrent of invasion. But 
Barras, though inferior to Carnot in genius, had even greater influ- 
ence, and it was through his favor that Napoleon received his 
appointments. That a young man of twenty-five should have the 
command of the army of the interior, is as remarkable as the vic- 
tories which subsequently showed that his elevation was not the 
work of chance, but of a providential hand. 

The acknowledged favorite of Barras was a young widow, by 
birth a Creole of the West Indies, whose husband, a general in 
the army of the Rhine, had been guillotined during the Reign of 
Terror. Her name was Josephine Beauharnais ; and, as a woman 
of sense, of warm affections, and of rare accomplishments, she 
won the heart of Napoleon, and was married to him, March 9, 
1796. Her dowry was the command of the army of Italy, which, 
through her influence, the young general received. 

Then commenced his brilliant military career. United with 
Josephine, whom he loved, he rose in rank and power. 

The army which Napoleon commanded was composed of forty- 
two thousand men, while the forces of the Italian states numbered 
one hundred and sixty thousand, and could with ease be increased 
to three hundred thousand. But Italian soldiers had never been 
able to contend with either Austrian or French, and Napoleon felt 
sure of victory. His soldiers were young men, inured to danger 
and toil ; and among his officers were Berthier, Massena, Marmont, 
Augereau, Serrurier, Joubert, Lannes, and Murat. They were 
not then all generals, but they became marshals of France. 



500 THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN. [CHAP. XXXI. 

The campaign of 1796, in Italy, was successful beyond prece- 
dent in the history of war ; and the battles of Montenotte, Millesi- 
lno, and Dego, the passage of the bridge of Lodi, the siege of 
Mantua, and the victories at Castiglione, Caldiero, Areola, Rivoli, 
and Mantua, extended the fame of Napoleon throughout the world. 
The Austrian armies were every where defeated, and Italy was 
subjected to the rule of the French. " With the French invasion 
commenced tyranny under the name of liberty, rapine Under the 
name of generosity, the stripping of churches, the robbing of hos- 
pitals, the levelling of the palaces of the great, and the destruction 
of the cottages of the poor ; all that military license has of most 
terrible, all that despotic authority has of most oppressive." 

While Napoleon was subduing Italy, the French under Moreau 
were contending, on the Rhine, with the Austrians under the Arch- 
duke Charles. Several great battles were fought, and masterly 
retreats were made, but without decisive results. 

It is surprising that England, France, and the other contending 
powers, were able at this time to commence the contest, much 
more so to continue it for more than twenty years. The French 
Directory, on its accession to power, found the finances in a state of 
inextricable confusion. Assignats had fallen to almost nothing, and 
taxes were collected with such difficulty, that there were arrears to 
the amount of fifteen hundred millions of francs. The armies were 
destitute and ill paid, the artillery without horses, and the infantry de- 
pressed by suffering and defeat. In England, the government of Pitt 
was violently assailed for carrying on a war against a country which 
sought simply to revolutionize her own institutions, and which all 
the armies of Europe had thus far failed to subdue. Mr. Fox, 
and others in the opposition, urged the folly of continuing a con- 
test which had already added one hundred millions of pounds to 
the national debt, and at a time when French armies were prepar- 
ing to invade Italy ; but Pitt argued that the French must be nearly 
exhausted by their great exertions, and would soon be unable to con 
tinue the warfare. The nation, generally, took this latter view of 
the case, and parliament voted immense supplies. 

The year 1797 opened gloomily for England. The French had 
gained immense successes. Napoleon had subdued Italy, Hoche 
had suppressed the rebellion in La Vendee, Austria was preparing 



CHAP. XXXI.] BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT. 501 

to defend her last barriers in the passes of the Alps, Holland was 
virtually incorporated with Republican France, Spain had also 
joined its forces, and the whole continent was arrayed against 
Great Britain. England had interfered in a contest in which she 
was not concerned, and was forced to reap the penalty. The 
funds fell from ninety-eight to fifty-one, and petitions for a change 
of ministers were sent to the king from almost every city of note 
in the kingdom. The Bank of England stopped payment in 
specie, and the countiy was overburdened by taxation. Never- 
theless, parliament voted new supplies, and made immense prepa- 
rations, especially for the increase of the navy. One hundred and 
twenty-four ships of the line, one hundred and eighty frigates, and 
one hundred and eighty-four sloops, were put in commission, and 
sent to the various quarters of the globe. 

Soon after occurred the memorable mutiny in the English fleet, 
which produced the utmost alarm ; but it was finally suppressed 
by the vigorous measures which the government adopted, and the 
happy union of firmness and humanity, justice and concession, 
which Mr. Pitt exercised. The mutiny was entirely disconnected 
with France, and resulted from the real grievances which existed 
in the navy ; grievances which, to the glory of Pitt, were candidly 
considered and promptly redressed.. The temporary disgrace 
which resulted to the navy by this mutiny was soon, however, 
wiped away by the battle of St. Vincent, in which Admiral Jarvis, 
seconded by Nelson and Collingwood, with fifteen ships of the 
line and six frigates, defeated a Spanish fleet of twenty-seven 
ships of the line and twelve frigates. This important naval vic- 
tory delivered England from all fears of invasion, and inspired 
courage into the hearts of the nation, groaning under the heavy 
taxes which the war increased. Before the season closed, the 
Dutch fleet, of fifteen ships of the line and eleven frigates, was 
defeated by an English one, under Admiral Duncan, consisting 
of sixteen ships of the line and three frigates. The battles of 
Camperdown and St. Vincent, in which the genius of Nelson was 
signally exhibited, were among the most important fought at sea 
during the war, and diffused unexampled joy throughout Great 
Britain. The victors were well rewarded. Jarvis became Earl 
St. Vincent, Admiral Duncan became a viscount, and Commo- 



502 CONQUEST OP VENICE BY NAPOLEON. [CHAP. XXXI. 

dore Nelson became a baronet. Soon after the bonfires and 
illuminations for these victories were ended, Mr. Burke died ; 
urging, as his end approached, the ministry to persevere in the 
great struggle to which the nation was committed. 

While the English were victorious on the water, the French 
obtained new triumphs on the land. In twenty days after the 
opening of the campaign of 1797, Napoleon had driven the Arch- 
duke Charles, with an army equal to his own, over the Julian 
Alps, and occupied Carniola, Carinthia, Trieste, Fiume, and the 
Italian Tyrol, while a force of forty-five thousand men, flushed 
with victory, was on the northern declivity of the Alps, within 
fifty leagues of Vienna. In the midst of these successes, an insur- 
rection broke out in the Venetian territories ; and, as Napoleon 
was not supported, as he expected, by the armies of the Rhine, 
and partly in consequence of the jealousy of the Directory, he 
resolved to forego all thoughts of dictating peace under the walls 
of Vienna, and contented himself with making as advantageous 
terms as possible with the Austrian government. Napoleon 
accomplished his object, and directed his attention to the subju- 
gation of Venice, no longer the " Queen of the Adriatic, throned 
on her hundred isles," but degenerate, weakened, and divided. 
Napoleon acted, in his treaty with Austria, with great injustice to 
Venice, and also encouraged the insurrection of the people in her 
territories. And when the Venetian government attempted to 
suppress rebellion in its own provinces, Napoleon affected great 
indignation, and soon found means to break off all negotiations. 
The Venetian senate made every effort to avert the storm, but in 
vain. Napoleon declared war against Venice, and her fall . soon 
after resulted. The French seized all the treasure they could find, 
and obliged the ruined capital to furnish heavy contributions, and 
surrender its choicest works of art. Soon after, the youthful con- 
queror established himself in the beautiful chateau of Montebello, 
near Milan, and there dictated peace to the assembled ambassa- 
dors of Germany, Rome, Genoa, Venice, Naples, Piedmont, and 
the Swiss republic. The treaty of Campo Formio exhibited both 
the strength and the perfidy of Napoleon, especially in reference 
to Venice, which was disgracefully despoiled to pay the expenses 
of the Italian wars. Among other things, the splendid bronze 



CHAP. XXXI.] INVASION OF EGYPT. 503 

horses, which, for six hundred years, had stood over the portico of 
the church of St. Mark, to commemorate the capture of Constan- 
tinople by the Venetian crusaders, and which had originally been 
brought from Corinth to Rome by ancient conquerors, were 
removed to Paris to decorate the Tuileries. 

Napoleon's journey from Italy to Paris, after Venice, with its 
beautiful provinces, was surrendered to Austria, was a triumphal 
procession. The enthusiasm of the Parisians was boundless; the 
public curiosity to see him indescribable. But he lived in a quiet 
manner, and assumed the. dress of a member of the Institute, being 
lately elected. Great fetes were given to his honor, and his 
victories were magnified. 

But he was not content with repose or adulation. His ambitious 
soul panted for new conquests, and he conceived the scheme of 
his Egyptian invasion, veiled indeed from the eyes of the world 
by a pretended attack on England herself. He was invested, 
with great pomp, by the Directory, with the command of the army 
of England, but easily induced the government to sanction the 
invasion of Egypt. It is not probable that Napoleon seriously 
contemplated the conquest of England, knowing the difficulty of 
supporting and recruiting his army, even if he succeeded in land- 
ing his forces. He probably designed to divert the attention of the 
English from his projected enterprise. 

When all was ready, Napoleon (9th May) embarked at Toulon 
in a fleet of thirteen ships of the line, fourteen frigates, seventy- 
two brigs, and four hundred transports, containing thirty-sLx thou- 
sand soldiers and ten thousand sailors. He was joined by 
reinforcements at Genoa, Ajaccio, Civita Castellana, and on the 
10th of June arrived at Malta, which capitulated without firing a 
shot ; proceeded on his voyage, succeeded in escaping the squadron 
of Nelson and Collingwood, and on the 1st of July reached Alex- 
andria. He was vigorously opposed by the Mamelukes, who were 
the actual rulers of the country, but advanced in spite of them to 
Cairo, and marched along the banks of the Nile. Near the Pyra- 
mids, a great battle took place, and the Mamelukes were signally 
defeated, and the fate of Egypt was sealed. 

But Nelson got intelligence of Napoleon's movements, and 
resolved to " gain a peerage, or a grave in Westminster Abbey." 



504 SIEGE OF ACRE. [CHAP. XXXI. 

Then succeeded the battle of the Nile, and the victory of Nelson ; 
one of the most brilliant but bloody actions in the history of naval 
warfare. Nelson lost an arm, but gained a peerage and magnifi- 
cent presents. The battle was a mortal stroke to the French 
army, and made the conquest of Egypt useless. Napoleon found 
his army exiled, and himself destined to hopeless struggles with 
Oriental powers. But he made gigantic efforts, in order to 
secure the means of support, to prosecute scientific researches, 
and to complete the conquest of the country. He crossed the 
desert which separates Africa from Asia, with his army, which 
did not exceed sixteen thousand men, invaded Syria, stormed 
Jaffa, massacred its garrison, since he could not afford to support 
the prisoners, — a most barbarous measure, and not to be excused 
even in view of the policy of the act, — and then advanced to 
Acre. Its memorable siege in the time of the Crusades should 
have deterred Napoleon from the attempt to subdue it with his 
little army in the midst of a hostile population. But he made the 
attack. The fortress, succored by Sir Sidney Smith, successfully 
resisted the impetuosity of his troops, and they were compelled to 
retire with the loss of three thousand men. His discomfited army 
retreated to Egypt, and suffered all the accumulated miseries 
which fatigue, heat, thirst, plague, and famine could inflict 
He, however, amidst all these calamities, added to discontents 
among the troops, won the great battle of Aboukir, and immedi- 
ately after, leaving the army under the command of Kleber, 
returned to Alexandria, and secretly set sail for France, accom- 
panied by Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Marmont, and other generals. 
He succeeded in escaping the English cruisers, and, on the 8th 
of October, 1799, landed in France. 

Napoleon, had he not been arrested at Acre by Sir Sidney 
Smith, probably would have conquered Asia Minor, and established 
an Oriental empire ; but such a conquest would not have been 
permanent. More brilliant victories were in reserve for him than 
conquering troops of half-civilized Turks and Arabs. 

During the absence of Napoleon in Egypt, the French Direc- 
tory became unpopular, and the national finances more embar- 
rassed than ever. But Switzerland was invaded and conquered ; 
an outrage which showed the ambitious designs of the government 



CHAP. XXXI.] REVERSES OF THE FRENCH. 505 

more than any previous attack which it had made on the liberties 
of Europe. The Papal States were next seized, the venerable 
pontiff was subjected to cruel indignities, and the treasures and 
monuments of Rome were again despoiled. " The Vatican was 
stripped to its naked walls, and the immortal frescoes of Raphael 
and Michael Angelo alone remained in solitary beauty amidst the 
general desolation." The King of Sardinia was driven from his 
dominions, and Naples yielded to the tricolored flag. Immense 
military contributions were levied in all these unfortunate states, 
and all that was beautiful in art was transported to Paris. 

In the mean time, the spirits of the English were revived by the 
victories of Nelson, and greater preparations than ever were made 
to resist the general, who now plainly aimed at the conquest of 
Europe. England, Austria, and Russia combined against France, 
and her armies met with reverses in Italy and on the Rhine. Su- 
warrow, with a large army of Russians united with Austrians, 
gained considerable success, and General Moreau was obliged to 
retreat before him. Serrurier surrendered with seven thousand 
men, and Suwarrow entered Milan in triumph, with sixty thousand 
troops. Turin shared the fate of Milan, and Piedmont and Lom- 
bardy were overrun by the allies. The republicans were expelled 
from Naples. Mantua fell, and Suwarrow marched with his con- 
quering legions into Switzerland. 

These disasters happened while Napoleon was in Egypt ; and 
his return to France was hailed with universal joy. His victories 
in Egypt had prepared the way for a most enthusiastic reception, 
and for his assumption of the sovereign power. All the generals 
then in Paris paid their court to him, and his saloon, in his humble 
dwelling in the Rue Chantereine, resembled the court of a mon- 
arch. Lannes, Murat, Berthier, Jourdan, Augereau, Macdonald, 
Bournonville, Leclerc, Lefebvre, and Marbot, afterwards so illus- 
trious as the marshals of the emperor, offered him the military 
dictatorship, while Sieyes, Talleyrand, and Regnier, the great 
civil leaders, concurred to place him at the head of affairs. He 
himself withdrew from the gaze of the people, affected great 
simplicity, and associated chiefly with men distinguished for 
literary and scientific attainments. But he secretly intrigued with 
Sieyes and with his generals. Three of the Directory sent in 
43 



506 NAPOLEON FIRST CONSUL. [CHAP. XXXI. 

their resignations, and Napoleon assumed the reins of government, 
under the title of £irst Consul, and was associated with Sieves 
and Roger Ducos. The legislative branches of the government 
resisted, but the Council of Five Hundred was powerless before 
the bayonets of the military. A new revolution was effected, and 
despotic power in the hands of a military chieftain commenced. 
He, however, signalized himself by the clemency he showed in 
the moment of victory, and the principles of humanity, even in 
the government of a military despot, triumphed over the principles 
of cruelty. Napoleon chose able men to assist him in the govern- 
ment. Talleyrand was made minister of foreign affairs. Fouche 
retained his portfolio of police, and the celebrated La Place was 
made minister of the interior. On the 24th of December, 1799, 
the new constitution was proclaimed ; and, shortly after, Sieyes 
and Roger Ducos withdrew from the consulate, and gave place to 
Cambaceres and Lebrun, who were in the interests of Napoleon. 

The first step of the first consul was to offer peace to Great 
Britain ; and he wrote a letter to the king, couched in his peculiar 
style of mock philanthropy and benevolence, in which he spoke of 
peace as the first necessity and truest glory of nations ! Lord 
Grenville, minister of foreign affairs, replied in a long letter, in 
which he laid upon France the blame of the war, in consequence 
of her revolutionary principles and aggressive spirit, and refused 
to make peace while the causes of difficulty remained ; in other 
words, until the Bourbon dynasty was restored. The Commons 
supported the government by a large majority, and all parties 
prepared for a still more desperate conflict. Napoleon was obliged 
to fight, and probably desired to fight, feeling that his power and 
the greatness of his country would depend upon the victories he 
might gain ; that so long as the eclat of his government con- 
tinued, his government would be strong. Mr. Pitt was probably 
right in his opinion that no peace could be lasting with a revolu- 
tionary power, and that every successive peace would only pave 
the way for fresh aggressions. Napoleon could only fulfil what he 
called his destiny, by continual agitation ; and this was well under- 
stood by himself and by his enemies. The contest had become 
one of life and death; and both parties resolved that no peace 
should be made until one or the other was effectually conquered. 



CHAP. XXXI.] IMMENSE MILITARY PREPARATIONS. 507 

The land forces of Great Britain, at the commencement of the 
year 1800, amounted to one hundred and sixty-eight thousand 
men, exclusive of eighty thousand militia, while one hundred and 
twenty thousand seamen and marines were voted. The ships in 
commission were no less than five hundred, including one hundred 
and twenty -four of the line. The charter of the Bank of England 
was renewed, and the union with Ireland effected. The various 
German states made still greater exertions, and < agreed to raise a 
contingent force of three hundred thousand men. They were 
greatly assisted in this measure by subsidies from Great Britain. 
Austria, alone, had in the field at this time a force of two hundred 
thousand men, half of whom belonged to the army of Italy under 
Melas. 

To make head against the united forces of England and Austria, 
with a defeated army, an exhausted treasury, and a disunited 
people, was the difficult task of Napoleon. His first object was 
to improve the finances ; his second, to tranquillize La Vendee ; 
his third, to detach Russia from the allies ; his fourth, to raise 
armies equal to the crisis ; and all these measures he rapidly 
accomplished. One hundred and twenty thousand men were 
raised by conscription, without any exemption from either rank or 
fortune, and two hundred and fifty thousand men were ready to 
commence hostilities. The first consul suppressed the liberty of 
the press, fixed his residence in the Tuileries, and established the 
usages and ceremonial of a court. He revoked the sentence of 
banishment on illustrious individuals, established a secret police, 
and constructed the gallery of the Louvre. 

Hostilities commenced in Germany, and General Moreau was 
successful over General Kray at the battles of Engen, Moes- 
kirch, and Biberach. General Massena fought with great cour- 
age in the Maritime Alps, but was obliged to retreat before 
superior forces, and shut himself up in Genoa, which endured 
a dreadful siege, but' was finally compelled to surrender. The 
victor, Melas, then set out to meet Napoleon himself, who was 
invading Italy, and had just effected his wonderful passage over 
the Alps by the Great St. Bernard, one of the most wonderful 
feats in the annals of war; for his artillery and baggage had to be 
transported over one of the highest and most difficult passes of the 



508 THE REFORMS OF NAPOLEON. [CHAP. XXXI. 

Alps. The passes of the St. Gothard and Mount Cenis were also 
effected by the wingsjof the army. The first action was at Monte- 
bello, which ended in favor of the French ; and this was soon 
followed by a decisive and brilliant victory at Marengo, (June 14,) 
one of the most obstinately contested during the war, and which 
was attended with greater results than perhaps any battle that had 
yet occurred in modern warfare. Moreau also gained a great 
victory over the Austrians at Hohenlinden, and Macdonald per- 
formed great exploits amid the mountains of the Italian Tyrol. 
The treaty of Luneville, (February 9, 1801,) in consequence of 
the victorious career of Napoleon, ceded to France the possession 
of Belgium, and the whole left bank of the Rhine. Lombardy was 
erected into an independent state, Venice was restored to Austria, 
and the independence of the Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Ligu- 
rian republics was guaranteed. This peace excited unbounded joy 
at Paris, and was the first considerable pause in the continental strife. 
Napoleon returned to his capital to reconstruct society, which was 
entirely disorganized. It was his object to restore the institutions 
of religion, law, commerce, and education. He did not attempt 
to give constitutional freedom. This was impracticable ; but he 
did desire to bring order out of confusion. One night, going to 
the theatre, he narrowly escaped death by the explosion of an 
" infernal machine." He attributed the design of assassination to 
the Jacobins, and forthwith transported one hundred and thirty of 
them, more as a statesman than as a judge. He was determined to 
break up that obnoxious party, and the design against his life 
furnished the pretence. Shortly after, he instituted the Legion 
of Honor, an order of merit which was designed to restore 
gradually the gradation in the ranks of society. He was violently 
opposed, but he carried his measures through the Council of State ; 
and this institution, which at length numbered two thousand per- 
sons, civil and military, became both popular and useful. He 
then restored the external institution of religion, and ten arch- 
bishops and fifty bishops administered the affairs of the Gallican 
Church. The restoration of the Sunday, with its customary 
observances, was hailed by the peasantry with undisguised delight, 
and was a pleasing sight to the nations of Europe. He then con- 
templated the complete restoration of all the unalienated national 



CHAP. XXXI.] : THE CODE NAPOLEON. 509 

property to the original proprietors, but was forced to abandon the 
design. A general amnesty was also proclaimed to emigrants, 
by which one hundred thousand people returned, not to enjoy their 
possessions, but to recover a part of them, and breathe the air of 
their native land. At last, he resolved to make himself first 
consul for life, and seat his family on a monarchical throne. He 
was opposed by the Council of State ; but he appealed to the peo- 
ple, and three million three hundred and sixty-eight thousand two 
hundred and nine, out of three million five hundred and fifty-seven 
thousand eight hundred and eighty-five electors, voted for his 
elevation. 

The "Code Napoleon'''' then occupied his attention, indisputably 
the greatest monument of his reign, and the most beneficial event 
of his age. All classes and parties have praised the wisdom of 
this great compilation, which produced more salutary changes 
than had been effected by all the early revolutionists. Amid these 
great undertakings of the consul, the internal prosperity of France 
was constantly increasing, and education, art, and science received 
an immense impulse. Every thing seemed to smile upon Napo- 
leon, and all appeared reconciled to the great power which he 
exercised. 

But there were some of his generals who were attached to 
republican principles, and viewed with ill-suppressed jealousy the 
rapid strides he was making to imperial power. Moreau, the 
victor at Hohenlinden, was at the head of these, and, in conjunc- 
tion with Fouche, who had been turned out of his office on account 
of the immense power which it gave him, formed a conspiracy 
of republicans and royalists to overturn the consular throne. But 
Fouche revealed the plot to Napoleon, who restored him to power, 
and Generals Moreau and Pichegru, the Duke d'Enghien, and 
other illustrious persons we're arrested. The duke himself was 
innocent of the conspiracy, but was sacrificed to the jealousy of 
Napoleon, who wished to remove from the eyes of the people 
this illustrious scion of the Bourbon family, the only member of it 
he feared. This act was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable, 
and therefore impolitic, which Napoleon ever committed. " It was 
worse than a crime," said Talleyrand ; " it was a blunder." His 
murder again lighted the flames of continental war, and from it 
43* 



510 MEDITATED INVASION OF ENGLAND. [CHAP. XXXI. 

may be dated the commencement of that train of events which 
ultimately hurled Napoleon from the imperial throne. 

That possession was what his heart now coveted, and he there- 
fore seized what he desired, and what he had power to retain. 
On the 18th of May, 1804, Napoleon was declared Emperor of 
the French, and an overwhelming majority of the electoral votes 
of France confirmed him in his usurpation of the throne of Hugh 
Capet. 

His first step, as emperor, was the creation of eighteen mar- 
shals, all memorable in the annals of military glory — Berthier, 
Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, 
Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessieres, Kellermann, 
Lefebvre, Perignon, and Serrurier. The individual lives of these 
military heroes cannot here be alluded to. 

Early in the year 1805, the great powers of England, Austria, 
and Russia entered into a coalition to reduce France to its ancient 
limits, and humble the despot who had usurped the throne. Enor- 
mous preparations were made by all the belligerent states, and 
four hundred thousand men were furnished by the allies for active 
service ; a force not, however, much larger than Napoleon raised 
to prosecute his scheme of universal dominion. 

Among other designs, he meditated the invasion of England 
itself, and assembled for that purpose one of the most splendid 
armies which had been collected since the days of the Roman 
legions. It amounted to one hundred and fourteen thousand men, 
four hundred and thirty-two pieces of cannon, and fourteen thou- 
sand six hundred and fifty-four horses. Ample transports were 
provided to convey this immense army to the shores of England. 
But the English government took corresponding means of defence, 
having fathomed the designs of the enemy, who had succeeded 
in securing the cooperation of Spain. This great design of Napo- 
leon was defeated by the vigilance of the English, and the number 
of British ships which defended the coasts — the "wooden walls 11 
which preserved England from a most imminent and dreaded 
danger. 

Frustrated in the attempt to invade Great Britain, Napoleon 
instantly conceived the plan of the campaign of Austerlitz, and 
without delay gave orders for the march of his different armies to 



CHAP. XXXI.] BATTLE OF AUSTEKXITZ. 511 

the banks of the Danube. The army of England on the shores 
of the Channel, the forces in Holland, and the troops in Hanover 
were formed into seven corps, under the command of as many 
marshals, comprising altogether one hundred and ninety thousand 
men, while the troops of his allies in Italy and Germany amounted 
to nearly seventy thousand more. Eighty thousand new con- 
scripts were also raised, and all of these were designed for the 
approaching conflict with the Austrians. 

But before the different armies could meet together in Germany, 
Nelson had gained the great and ever-memorable victory of Traf- 
algar, (October 23,) on the coast of Spain, by which the naval 
power of France and Spain was so crippled and weakened, that 
England remained, during the continuance of the war, sovereign 
mistress of the ocean. Nothing could exceed the transports of 
exultation which pervaded the British empire on the news of this 
great naval victory — perhaps the greatest in the annals of war. 
And all that national gratitude could prompt was done in honor 
of Nelson. The remains of the fallen victor were buried in St. 
Paul's Cathedral, over which a magnificent monument was erected. 
His brother, who inherited his title, was made an earl, with a grant 
of six, thousand pounds a year, and an estate worth one hundred 
thousand pounds. Admiral Collingwood, the second in command, 
was raised to the peerage, with a grant of two thousand pounds 
yearly. But the thoughts of the nation were directed to the 
departed hero, and countless and weeping multitudes followed him 
to the grave ; and his memory has ever since been consecrated in 
the hearts of his countrymen, who regard him, and with justice, 
as the greatest naval commander whom any nation or age has 
produced. 

Early in October, the forces of Napoleon were marshalled 
on the plains of Germany, and the Austrians, under the Arch- 
duke Charles, acted on the defensive. Napoleon advanced 
rapidly on Vienna, seized the bridge which led from it to the 
northern provinces of the empire, passed through the city, and 
established his head-quarters at Shoenbrunn. On the 1st of 
December was fought the celebrated battle of Austerlitz, the most 
glorious of all Napoleon's battles, and in which his military genius 
shone with the greatest lustre, and which decided the campaign. 



512 BATTLE OF JENA. [CHAP. XXXI. 

Negotiations with Austria, dictated by the irresistible power of 
the French emperor, were soon concluded at Presburg, (27th 
December,) by which that ancient state was completely humbled. 
The dethronement of the King of Naples followed, and the power 
of Napoleon was consolidated on the continent of Europe. 

The defeat of Austerlitz was a great blow to the allied powers, 
and the health and spirits of Pitt sunk under the disastrous intel- 
ligence. A devouring fever seized his brain, and delirium 
quenched the fire of his genius. He died on the 23d of January, 
1806, at the age of forty-seven, with the exclamation, "Alas, 
my country ! " after having nobly guided the British bark in the 
most stormy times his nation had witnessed since the age of 
Cromwell. He was buried with great pomp in Westminster Ab- 
bey, and died in debt, after having the control, for so many years, 
of the treasury of England. Mr. Fox did not long survive his 
more illustrious rival, but departed from the scene of conflict and 
of glory the 13th of September. 

The humiliation of Prussia succeeded that of Austria. The 
battle of Jena, the 14th of October, prostrated, in a single day, the 
strength of the Prussian monarchy, and did what the united armies 
of Austria, Eussia, and France could not accomplish by the 
Seven Years' War. Napoleon followed up his victories by bold 
and decisive measures, invested Magdeburg, which was soon aban- 
doned, entered Berlin in triumph, and levied enormous contribu- 
tions on the kingdom, to the amount of one hundred and fifty-nine 
millions of francs. In less than seven weeks, three hundred and 
fifty standards, four thousand pieces of cannon, and eighty thou- 
sand prisoners were taken ; while only fifteen thousand, out of 
one hundred and twenty thousand men, were able to follow the 
standards of the conquered king to the banks of the Vistula. 
Alarm, as well as despondency, now seized all the nations of 
Europe. All the coalitions which had been made to suppress a 
revolutionary state had failed, and the proudest monarchs of 
Christendom were suppliant at the feet of Napoleon. 

The unfortunate Frederic William sued for peace ; but such 
hard conditions were imposed by the haughty conqueror at Berlin, 
that the King of Prussia prepared for further resistance, especially 
in view of the fact that the Russians were coming to his assistance. 



CHAP. XXXI.] NAPOLEON AGGRANDIZES FRANCE. 513 

At Berlin, Napoleon issued his celebrated decrees against British 
commerce, which, however, nourished in spite of them. 

Napoleon then advanced into Poland to meet the Russian armies, 
and at Eylau, on the 8th of February, 1807, was fought a bloody 
battle, in which fifty thousand men perished. It was indecisive, 
but had the effect of checking the progress of the French armies. 
But Napoleon ordered new conscriptions, and made unusual exer- 
tions, so that he soon had two hundred and eighty thousand men 
between the Vistula and Memel. New successes attended the 
French armies, which resulted in a peace with Russia, at Tilsit, 
on the river Niemen, at which place Napoleon had a personal 
interview with the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia. 
By this treaty, (7th July,) Poland was erected into a separate prin- 
cipality, and the general changes which Napoleon had made in 
Europe were ratified by the two monarchs. Soon after, Napo- 
leon, having subdued resistance on the continent of Europe, 
returned to his capital. He was now at the height of his fame 
and power, but on an elevation so high that his head became 
giddy. Moreover, his elevation, at the expense of Italy, Belgium, 
Switzerland, Austria, Prussia, Saxony, and Russia, to say nothing 
of inferior powers, excited the envy and the hatred of all over 
whom he had triumphed, and prepared the way for new intrigues 
and coalitions. 

Napoleon, after the peace of Tilsit, devoted all his energies to 
the preservation of his power and to the improvement of his 
country, and expected of his numerous subjects the most implicit 
obedience to his will. He looked upon himself as having received 
a commission from Heaven to rule and to reign as absolute mon- 
arch of a vast empire, as a being upon whom the fate of France 
depended. The watchwords " liberty," " equality," " fraternity," 
" the public welfare," were heard no more, and gave place to oth- 
ers which equally flattered the feelings of the French people — 
" the interests of the empire," " the splendor of the imperial 
throne." From him emanated all glory and power, and the whole 
structure of the state, executive, judicial, and legislative, depended 
upon his will. Freedom, in the eyes of the people, was succeeded 
by glory, and the eclat of victory was more highly prized than any 
fictitious liberty. The Code Napoleon rapidly progressed ; schools 



514 AGGRANDIZEMENT OF NAPOLEON'S FAMILY. [CHAP. XXXI. 

of science were improved ; arts, manufactures, and agriculture re- 
vived. Great momfments were reared to gratify the national pride 
and perpetuate the glory of conquests. The dignity of the imperial 
throne was splendidly maintained, and the utmost duties of eti- 
quette were observed. He encouraged amusements, festivities, 
and fetes; and Talma, the actor, as well as artists and scholars, 
received his personal regard. But his reforms and his policy had 
reference chiefly to the conversion of France into a nation of 
soldiers; and his system of conscription secured him vast and 
disciplined armies, not animated, as were the soldiers of the 
revolution, by the spirit of liberty, but transformed into mechan- 
ical forces. The time was to come, in spite of the military 
enthusiasm of his veteran soldiers, when it was to be proved 
that the throne of absolutism is better sustained by love than by 
mechanism. 

Napoleon had already elevated his two brothers, Louis and 
Joseph, to the thrones of Holland and Naples. He now sought to 
make his brother Joseph the King of Spain. He availed himself 
of a quarrel between King Charles and his son ; acted as media- 
tor, in the same sense that Hastings and Clive acted as mediators 
in the quarrels of Indian princes ; and prepared to seize, not to 
humble, one of the oldest and proudest monarchies of Europe. 

The details of that long war on the Spanish peninsula, which 
resulted from the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne 
of Spain, have been most admirably traced by Napier, in the best 
military history that has been written in modern times. The great 
hero of that war was Wellington ; and, though he fought under 
the greatest disadvantages and against superior forces, — though 
unparalleled sufferings and miseries ensued among all the bel- 
ligerent forces, — still he succeeded in turning the tide of French 
conquest. 

Spain did not fall without a struggle. The Spanish Juntas 
adopted all the means of defence in their power; and the 
immortal defence of Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, should 
have taught the imperial robber that the Spanish spirit, though 
degenerate, was not yet extinguished. 

It became almost the universal wish of the English to afford the 
Spaniards eveiy possible assistance in their honorable struggle, 



CHAP. XXXI.] THE PENINSULAR WAE. 515 

and Sir Arthur Wellesley, the conqueror of the Mahrattas, landed 
in Portugal in August, 1808. He was immediately opposed by 
Marshal Junot. Napoleon could not be spared to defend in person 
the throne of his brother, but his most illustrious marshals were 
sent into the field ; and, shortly after, the battle of Corunna was 
fought, at which Sir John Moore, one of the bravest of generals, 
was killed in the moment of victory. 

Long and disastrous was that Peninsular war. Before it could 
be closed, Napoleon was called to make new exertions. Austria 
had again declared war, and the forces which she raised were 
gigantic. Five hundred and fifty thousand men, in different 
armies, were put under the command of the Archduke Charles. 
Napoleon advanced against him, and was again successful, at 
Abensberg and at Echmuhl. Again he occupied Vienna ; but 
its fall did not discourage the Austrians, who, soon after, were 
marshalled against the French at Wagram, which dreadful battle 
made Napoleon once more the conqueror of Austria. On the 
14th of November, 1809, he returned to Paris, and soon after 
made the grand mistake of his life. 

He resolved to divorce Josephine, whom he loved and respected ; 
a woman fully worthy of his love, and of the exalted position to 
which she was raised. But she had no children, and Napoleon 
wanted an heir to the universal empire which he sought to erect 
on the ruins of the ancient monarchies of Europe. The dream 
of Charlemagne and of Charles V. was his, also — the revival of 
the great Western Empire. Moreover, Napoleon sought a domes- 
tic alliance with the proud family of the German emperor. He 
sought, by this, to gratify his pride and strengthen his throne. He 
perhaps also contemplated, with the Emperor of Austria for his 
father and ally, the easy conquest of Russia. Alexander so sup- 
posed. " His next task," said he, " will be to drive me back to 
my forests." 

The Empress Josephine heard of the intentions of Napoleon 
with indescribable anguish, but submitted to his will ; thus sacri- 
ficing her happiness to what she was made to believe would 
advance the welfare of her country and the interests of that 
heartless conqueror whom she nevertheless loved with unparal- 
leled devotion. On the 11th of March, 1810, the espousals of 



516 WAR IN SPAIN. [CHAP. XXXI. 

Bonaparte and Maria Louisa were celebrated at Vienna, the per- 
son of Napoleon being represented by his favorite Berthier. A 
few days afterwards she set out for France ; and her marriage, in 
a domestic point of view, was happy. Josephine had the advan- 
tage over her in art and grace, but she was superior in the charms 
of simplicity and modesty. " It is singular," says Sir Walter 
Scott, " that the artificial character should have belonged to the 
daughter of a West India planter ; that, marked by nature and 
simplicity, to a princess of the proudest court in Europe." 

Meanwhile, the war in Spain was prosecuted, and Napoleon 
was master of its richest and most powerful provinces. Seventy- 
five thousand men in Andalusia, under S'oult ; fifty thousand under 
Marmont, in Leon ; sixty thousand under Bessieres, at Valladolid 
and Biscay ; forty-five thousand under Macdonald, at Gerona, to 
guard Catalonia ; thirty thousand under Suchet, twenty thousand 
under Joseph and Jourdan, fifteen thousand under Regnier, besides 
many more thousand troops in the various garrisons, — ■■ in all over 
three hundred thousand men, — held Spain in military subjection. 
Against these immense forces, marshalled under the greatest gen- 
erals of France, Spain and her allies could oppose only about 
ninety thousand men, for the most part ill disciplined and equipped. 

The vital point of resistance was to be found shut up within the 
walls of Cadiz, which made a successful defence. But Tortosa, 
Tarragona, Saguntum, and Valentia, after making most desperate 
resistance, fell. But Wellington gained, on the other hand, the 
great battle of Albuera, one of the bloodiest ever fought, and 
which had a great effect in raising the spirits of his army and of 
the Spaniards. The tide of French conquest was arrested, and 
the English learned from their enemies those arts of war which 
had hitherto made Napoleon triumphant. 

In the next campaign of 1812, new successes were obtained by 
Wellington, and against almost overwhelming difficulties. He 
renewed the siege of Badajoz, and carried this frontier fortress, 
which enabled him now to act on the offensive, and to enter the 
Spanish territories. The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo was attended 
with the same important consequences. Wellington now aimed 
to reduce the French force on the Peninsula, although vastly supe- 
rior to his own. He had only sixty thousand men ; but, with this 



CHAP. XXXI.] INVASION OF RUSSIA. 517 

force, he invaded Spain, defended by three hundred thousand. 
Salamanca was the first place of consequence which fell : Mar- 
mont was totally defeated. Wellington advanced to Madrid, which 
he entered the 12th of August, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the 
Spanish population. Soult was obliged to raise the siege of Cadiz, 
abandon Andalusia, and hasten to meet the great English general, 
who had turned the tide of French aggression. Wellington was 
compelled, of course, to retire before the immense forces which 
were marching against him, and fell back to Salamanca, and 
afterwards to Ciudad Rodrigo. The campaign, on the part of the 
English, is memorable in the annals of successful war, and the 
French power was effectually weakened, if it was not destroyed. 

In the midst of these successes, Napoleon prepared for his disas- 
trous invasion of Russia ; the most gigantic and most unfortunate 
expedition in the whole history of war. 

Napoleon was probably induced to invade Russia in order to 
keep up the succession of victories. He felt that, to be secure, 
he must advance ; that, the moment he sought repose, his throne 
would begin to totter ; that nothing Would sustain the enthusiasm of 
his countrymen but new triumphs, commensurate with his greatness 
and fame. Some, however, dissuaded him from the undertaking, 
not only because it was plainly aggressive and unnecessary, but 
because it was impolitic. Three hundred thousand men were fight- 
ing in Spain to establish his family on the throne of the Bourbons, 
and the rest of Europe was watching his course, with the inten- 
tion of assailing him so soon as he should meet with misfortunes. 

But neither danger nor difficulty deterred Napoleon from the 
commission of a gigantic crimfe, for which no reasonable apology 
could be given, and which admits of no palliation. He made, 
however, a fearful mistake, and his rapid downfall was the result. 
Providence permitted him to humble the powers of Europe, but 
did not design that he should be permanently aggrandized by their 
misfortunes. 

The forces of all the countries he had subdued were marshalled 
with the French in this dreadful expedition, and nothing but enthu- 
siasm was excited in all the dominions of the empire. The army 
of invasion amounted to above five hundred thousand men, only 
two hundred thousand of whom were native French. To oppose 
44 



518 BATTLE OF SMOLENSKO. [cHAP. XXXI. 

this enormous force, the Russians collected about three hundred 
thousand men ; btft Napoleon felt secure of victory. 

On the banks of the Niemen he reviewed the principal corps 
of his army, collected from so many countries, and for the support 
of which they were obliged to contribute. On the 24th of June, 
he and his hosts crossed the river ; and never, probably, in the 
history of man, was exhibited a more splendid and imposing 
scene. 

The Russians retreated as the allied armies advanced ; and, on 
the 28th of June, Napoleon was at Wilna, where he foolishly 
remained seventeen days — the greatest military blunder of his 
life. The Emperor Alexander hastened to Moscow, collected his 
armaments, and issued proclamations to his subjects, which excited 
them to the highest degree of enthusiasm to defend their altars 
and their firesides. 

Both armies approached Smolensko about the 16th of July, and 
there was fought the first great battle of the campaign. The 
town was taken, and the Russians retreated towards Moscow. 
But before this first conflict began, a considerable part of the army 
had perished from sickness and fatigue. At Borodino, another 
bloody battle was fought, in which more men were killed and 
wounded than in any battle which histoiy records. Napoleon, in 
this battle, did not exhibit his usual sagacity or energy, being, 
perhaps, overwhelmed with anxiety and fatigue. His dispirited 
and broken army continued the march to Moscow, which was 
reached the 14th of September. The Sacred City of the Russians 
was abandoned by the army, and three hundred thousand of the 
inhabitants took to flight. Napoleon had scarcely entered the 
deserted capital, and taken quarters in the ancient palace of the 
czars, before the city was discovered to be on fire in several places ; 
and even the Kremlin itself was soon enveloped in flames. Who 
could have believed that the Russians would have burnt their 
capital ? Such an event surely never entered into a Frenchman's 
head. The consternation and horrors of that awful conflagration 
can never be described, or even conceived. Pillage and murder 
could scarcely add to the universal wretchedness. Execration, 
indignation, and vengeance filled the breasts of both the conquerors 
and the conquered. But who were the conquerors r Alas ! those 



CHAP. XXXI.] RETREAT OF THE FRENCH. 519 

only, who witnessed the complicated miseries and awful destruc- 
tion of the retreating army, have answered. 

The retreat , was the saddest tragedy ever acted by man, but 
rendered inevitable after the burning of Moscow, for Napoleon 
could not have advanced to St. Petersburg. For some time, he 
lingered in the vicinity of Moscow, hoping for the submission of 
Russia. Alexander was too wise to treat for peace, and Napoleon 
and his diminished army, loaded, however, with the spoil of 
Moscow, commenced his retreat, in a hostile and desolate country, 
harassed by the increasing troops of the enemy. Soon, however, 
heavy frosts commenced, unusual even in Russia, and the roads 
were strewed by thousands who perished from fatigue and cold. 
The retreat became a rout ; for order, amid general destruction and 
despair, could no longer be preserved. The Cossacks, too, hung 
upon the rear of the retreating army, and cut off thousands whom 
the elements had spared. In less than a week, thirty thousand 
horses died, and famished troops preyed upon their remains. The 
efforts of Napoleon proved in vain to procure provisions for the 
men, or forage for the horses. Disasters thickened, and all aban- 
doned themselves to despair. Of all the awful scenes which 
appalled the heart, the passage of the Beresina was the most 
dreadful. When the ice was dissolved in the following spring, 
twelve thousand dead bodies were found upon the shore. The 
shattered remnants of the Grand Army, after unparalleled suffer- 
ing, at length reached the bank of the Niemen. Not more than 
twenty thousand of the vast host with which Napoleon passed 
Smolensko left the Russian territory. Their course might be 
traced by the bones which afterwards whitened the soil. But 
before the Polish territories were reached, Napoleon had deserted 
his army, and bore to Paris himself the first intelligence of his 
great disaster. One hundred and twenty-five thousand of his 
troops had died in battle, one hundred and ninety thousand had 
been taken prisoners, and one hundred and thirty-two thousand 
had died of cold, fatigue and famine. Only eighty thousand had 
escaped, of whom twenty-five thousand were Austrians and 
eighteen thousand were Prussians. The annals of the world 
furnish no example of so complete an overthrow of so vast an 
armament, or so terrible a retribution to a vain-glorious nation. 



520 BATTLES OF LUTZEN AND BAUTZEN. [CHAP. XXXI. 

This calamity proved the chief cause of Napoleon's overthrow. 
Had he retained hjs forces to fight on the defensive, he would 
have been too strong for his enemies ; but, by his Russian cam- 
paign, he lost a great part of his veteran troops, and the veneration 
of his countiymen. 

His failure was immediately followed by the resurrection of 
Germany. Both Austria and Prussia threw off" the ignominious 
yoke he had imposed, and united with Russia to secure their 
ancient liberties. The enthusiasm of the Prussians was unbounded, 
and immense preparations were made by all the allied powers for 
a new campaign. Napoleon exerted all the energies, which had 
ever distinguished him, to rally his exhausted countrymen, and a 
large numerical force was again raised. But the troops were 
chiefly conscripts, young men, unable to endure the fatigue which 
his former soldiers sustained, and no longer inspired with their 
sentiments and ideas. 

The campaign of 1813 was opened in Germany, signalized 
by the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, in which the French had 
the advantage. Saxony still remained true to Napoleon, and he 
established his head-quarters in Dresden. The allies retreated, 
but only to prepare for more vigorous operations. England nobly 
assisted, and immense supplies wei'e sent to the mouth of the 
Elbe, and distributed immediately through Germany. While 
these preparations were going on, the battle of Vittoria, in Spain, 
was fought, which gave a death blow to French power in the 
Peninsula, and placed Wellington in the front rank of generals. 
Napoleon was now more than ever compelled to act on the defen- 
sive, which does not suit the genius of the French character, and 
he resolved to make the Elbe the base of his defensive operations. 
His armies, along this line, amounted to the prodigious number of 
four hundred thousand men ; and Dresden, the head-quarters of 
Napoleon, presented a scene of unparalleled gayety and splendor, 
of licentiousness, extravagance, and folly. But Napoleon was 
opposed by equally powerful forces, under Marshal Blucher, the 
Prussian general, a veteran seventy years of age, and Prince 
Schwartzenberg, who commanded the Austrians. But these im- 
mense armies composed not one half of the forces arrayed in 
desperate antagonism. Nine hundred thousand men in arms 



CHAP. XXXI.] BATTLE OF LEIPSIC. 521 

encircled the French empire, which was defended by seven hun- 
dred thousand. 

The allied forces marched upon Dresden, and a dreadful battle 
was fought, on the 27th of August, beneath its walls, which resulted 
in the retreat of the allies, and in the death of General Moreau, 
who fought against his old commander. But Napoleon was una- 
ble to remain long in that elegant capital, having exhausted his 
provisions and forage, and was obliged to retreat. On the 15th 
of October was fought the celebrated battle of Leipsic, in which 
a greater number of men were engaged than in any previous bat- 
tle during the war, ©r probably in the history of Europe — two 
hundred and thirty thousand against one hundred and sixty thou- 
sand. The triumph of the allies was complete. Napoleon was 
overpowered by the overwhelming coalition of his enemies. He 
had nothing to do, after his great discomfiture, but to retreat to 
France, and place the kingdom in the best defence in his power. 
Misfortunes thickened in every quarter ; and, at the close of the 
campaign, France retained but a few fortresses beyond the Rhine. 
The contest in Germany was over, and French domination in that 
country was at an end. Out of four hundred thousand men, only 
eighty thousand recrossed the Rhine. So great were the conse- 
quences of the battle of Leipsic, in which the genius of Napoleon 
was exhibited as in former times, but which availed nothing against 
vastly superior forces. A grand alliance of all the powers of 
Europe was now arrayed against Napoleon — from the rock of 
Gibraltar to .the shores of Archangel ; from the banks of the 
Scheldt to the margin of the Bosphorus ; the mightiest confedera- 
tion ever known, but indispensably necessary. The greatness of 
Napoleon is seen in his indomitable will in resisting this confed- 
eration, when his allies had deserted him, and when his own sub- 
jects were no longer inclined to rally around his standard. He 
still held out, even when over a million of men, from the dif- 
ferent states that he had humbled, were rapidly hemming him 
round and advancing to his capital. Only three hundred and 
fifty thousand men nominally remained to defend his frontiers, 
while his real effective army amounted to little over one hundred 
thousand men. A million of his soldiers in eighteen months had 
perished, and where was he to look for recruits ? 
44* 



522 THE ALLIED POWERS INVADE FRANCE. [CHAP. XXXI. 

On the 31st of December, 1814, fourteen hundred and seven 
years after the Suev^, Vandals, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine 
and entered without opposition the defenceless provinces of Gaul, 
the united Prussians, Austrians, and Russians crossed the same 
river, and invaded the territories of the modern Caesar. They 
rapidly advanced towards Paris, and Napoleon went forth from his 
capital to meet them. His cause, however, was now desperate ; 
but he made great exertions, and displayed consummate abilities, 
so that the forces of his enemies were for a time kept at bay. 
Battles were fought and won by both sides, without decisive 
results. Slowly, but surely, the allied armies advanced, and 
gradually surrounded him. By the 30th of March, they were 
encamped on the heights of Montmartre ; and Paris, defenceless 
and miserable, surrendered to the conquerors. They now refused 
to treat with Napoleon, who, a month before, at the conference of 
Chatillon, might have retained his throne, if he had consented to 
reign over the territories of France as they were before the Revo- 
lution. Napoleon retired to Fontainebleau ; and, on the 4th of 
April, he consented to abdicate the throne he no longer could 
defend. His wife returned to her father's protection, and nearly 
every person of note or consideration abandoned him. On the 
11th, he formally abdicated, and the house of Bourbon was re- 
stored. He himself retired to the Island of Elba, but was allowed 
two million five hundred thousand francs a year, the title of em- 
peror, and four hundred soldiers as his body guard. His farewell 
address to the soldiers of his old guard, at Fontainebleau, was pa- 
thetic and eloquent. They retained their attachment amid general 
desertion and baseness. 

Josephine did not long survive the fall of the hero she had loved, 
and with whose fortunes her own were mysteriously united. She 
died on the 28th, and her last hours were soothed by the presence 
of the Emperor Alexander, who promised to take her children 
under his protection. Of all the great monarchs of his age, 
he was the most extensively beloved and the most profoundly 
respected. 

The allies showed great magnanimity and moderation after their 
victory. The monarchy of France was established nearly as it 
was before the Revolution, and the capital was not rifled of any of 



CHAP. XXXI.] PEACE OF PARIS. 523 

its monuments, curiosities, or treasures — not even of those which 
Napoleon had brought from Italy. Nor was there a military con- 
tribution imposed upon the people. The allies did not make war 
to destroy the kingdom of France, but to dethrone a monarch who 
had proved himself to be the enemy of mankind. The peace of 
Paris was signed by the plenipotentiaries of France, Great Britain, 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, on the 30th of April ; and Christen- 
dom, at last, indulged the hope that the awful conflict had ended. 
The Revolution and its offspring Napoleon were apparently sup- 
pressed, after more than three millions of men had perished in the 
struggle on the part of France and of her allies alone. 

Great changes had taken place in the sentiments of all classes, 
since the commencement of the contest, twenty years before, and 
its close excited universal joy. In England, the enthusiasm was 
unparalleled, and not easy to be conceived. The nation, in its 
gratitude to Wellington, voted him four hundred thousand pounds, 
and the highest military triumphs. It also conferred rewards and 
honors on his principal generals ; for his successful operations in 
Spain were no slight cause of the overthrow of Napoleon. 

But scarcely were these rejoicings terminated, before Napoleon 
escaped from Elba, and again overturned the throne of the Bour- 
bons. The impolitic generosity and almost inconceivable rashness 
of the allies had enabled Napoleon to carry on extensive intrigues 
in Paris, and to collect a respectable force on the island of which 
he was constituted the sovereign ; while the unpopularity and im- 
politic measures of the restored dynasty singularly favored any 
scheme which Napoleon might have formed. The disbanding of 
an immense military force, the humiliation of those veterans who 
still associated with the eagles of Napoleon the glory of France, 
the derangement of the finances, and the discontents of so many 
people thrown out of employment, naturally prepared the way for 
the return of the hero of Marengo and Austerlitz. 

On the 26th of February, he gave a brilliant ball to the princi- 
pal people of the island, and embarked the same evening, with 
eleven hundred troops, to regain the sceptre which had been 
wrested from him only by the united powers of Europe. On the 
1st of March, his vessels cast anchor in the Gulf of St. Juan, on 
the coast of Provence ; and Napoleon immediately commenced 



524 napoleon's return to France, [chap. xxxi. 

his march, having unfurled the tricolored flag. As he anticipated, 
he was welcomed by tke people, and the old cry of " Vive VErn- 
perear " saluted his ears. 

The court of the Bourbons made vigorous preparations of resist- 
ance, and the armies of France were intrusted to those marshals 
who owed their elevation to Napoleon. Soult, Ney, Augereau, 
Massena, Oudinot, all protested devotion to Louis XVIII. ; and 
Ney promised the king speedily to return to Paris with Napoleon 
in an iron cage. But Ney was among the first to desert the cause 
of law and legitimacy, and threw himself into the arms of the 
emperor. He could not withstand the arts and the eloquence of 
that great hero for whose cause he had so long fought. The de- 
fection of the whole army rapidly followed. The king was obliged 
to fly, and Napoleon took possession of his throne, amid the uni- 
versal transports of the imperial party in France. 

The intelligence of his restoration filled Europe with consterna- 
tion, rage, and disappointment, and greater preparations were 
made than ever to subdue a man who respected neither treaties nor 
the interests of his country. The unparalleled sum of one hun- 
dred and ten millions of pounds sterling was decreed by the British 
senate for various purposes, and all the continental powers made 
proportionate exertions. The genius of Napoleon never blazed 
so brightly as in preparing for his last desperate conflict with 
united Christendom ; and, considering the exhaustion of his coun- 
try, the forces which he collected were astonishing. Before the 
beginning of June, two hundred and twenty thousand veteran sol- 
diers were completely armed and equipped ; a great proof of the 
enthusiastic ardor which the people felt for Napoleon to the last. 

The Duke of Wellington had eighty thousand effective men 
under his command, and Marshal Blucher one hundred and ten 
thousand. These forces were to unite, and march to Paris through 
Belgium. It was arranged that the Austrians and Russians should 
invade France first, by Befort and Huningen, in order to attract 
the enemy's principal forces to that quarter. 

Napoleon's plan was to collect all his forces into one mass, and 
boldly to place them between the English and Prussians, and 
attack them separately. He had under his command one hundred 
and twenty thousand veteran troops, and therefore, not unreason- 



CHAP. XXXI.] BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 525 

ably, expected to combat successfully the one hundred and 
ninety thousand of the enemy. He forgot, however, that he had 
to oppose Wellington and Blucher. 

On the 18th of June was performed the last sad act of the great 
tragedy which had for twenty years convulsed Europe with blood 
and tears. All the combatants on that eventful day understood 
the nature of the contest, and the importance of the battle. At 
Waterloo, Napoleon staked his last throw in the desperate game 
he had hazarded, and lost it ; and was ruined, irrevocably and 
forever. 

Little signified his rapid flight, his attempt to defend Paris, or 
his readiness to abdicate in favor of his son. The allied powers 
again, on the 7th of July, entered Paris, and the Bourbon dynasty 
was restored. 

Napoleon retired to Rochefort, hoping to escape his enemies 
and reach America. It was impossible. He then resolved to 
throw himself upon the generosity of the English. He was 
removed to St. Helena, where he no longer stood a chance to 
become the scourge of the nations. And there, on that lonely 
island, in the middle of the ocean, guarded most effectually by 
his enemies, his schemes of conquest ended. He supported his 
hopeless captivity with tolerable equanimity, showing no signs of 
remorse for the injuries he had inflicted, but meditating profoundly 
on the mistakes he had committed, and conjecturing vainly on the 
course he might have adopted for the preservation of his power. 

How idle were all his conjectures and meditations ! Plis fall 
was decreed in the councils of Heaven, and no mortal strength 
could have prevented his overthrow. His mission of blood was 
ended ; and his nation, after its bitter humiliation, was again to 
enjoy repose. But he did not live in vain. He lived as a messen- 
ger of divine vengeance to chastise the objects of divine indigna- 
tion. He lived to show to the world what a splendid prize human 
energy could win ; and yet to show how vain, after all, was mili- 
tary glory, and how worthless is the enjoyment of any victory 
purchased by the sufferings of mankind. He lived to point the 
melancholy moral, that war, for its own sake, is a delusion, a 
mockery, and a snare, and that the greater the elevation to which 
unlawful ambition can raise a man, the greater will be his 



526 REFLECTIONS ON NAPOLEON'S FALL. [CHAP. XXXI. 

subsequent humiliation : that " pride goeth before destruction, and 
a haughty spirit before a fall." 

The allied sovereigns of Europe insisted on the restoration of 
the works of art which Napoleon had pillaged. " The bronzed 
horses, brought from Corinth to Rome, again resumed their old 
station in the front of the Church of St. Mark ; the Transfiguration 
was restored to the Vatican ; the Apollo and the Laocoon again 
adorned St. Peter's ; the Venus was enshrined with new beauty 
a t Florence ; and the Descent from the Cross was replaced in the 
Cathedral of Antwerp." By the treaty which restored peace to 
Europe for a generation, the old dominions of Austria, Prussia, 
Russia, Spain, Holland, and Italy were restored, and the Bourbons 
again reigned over the ancient provinces of France. Popular 
liberty on the continent of Europe was entombed, and the dreams 
of revolutionists were unrealized ; but suffering proved a beneficial 
ordeal, and prepared the nations of Europe to appreciate, more 
than ever, the benefits and blessings of peace. 



References. — The most complete work, on the whole, though full of 
faults, and very heavy and prosaic, is Alison's History of the French 
Revolution. Scott's Life of Napoleon was too hastily written, an d has many 
mistakes. No English author has done full justice to Napoleon. Thiers's 
Histories are invaluable. Napier's History of the Peninsula War is 
masterly. Wellington's Despatches are indispensable only to a student. 
Botta's History of Italy under Napoleon. Dodsley's Annual Register. 
Labaume's Russian Campaign. Southey's Peninsular War. Liborne's 
Waterloo Campaign. Southey's Life of Nelson. Sherer's Life of the 
Duke of Wellington. GifFord's Life of Pitt. Moore's Life of Sir John 
Moore. James's Naval History. Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantes. 
Berthier's Histoire de l'Expedition d'Egypte. Schlosser's Modern History. 
The above works are the most accessible, but form but a small part of 
those which have appeared concerning the French Revolution and the 
career of Napoleon. For a complete list of original authorities, see the 
preface of Alison, and the references of Thiers. 



CHAP. XXXII. COMPLEXITY OF MODERN HISTORY. 527 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

EUROPE ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON. 

It would be interesting to trace the history of the civilized world 
since the fall of Napoleon; but any attempt to bring within the 
limits of a history like this a notice of the great events which 
have happened for thirty-five years, would be impossible. And 
even a notice as extended as that which has been presented of the 
events of three hundred years would be unsatisfactory to all minds. 
The common reader is familiar with the transactions of the 
present generation, and reflections on them would be sure to excite 
the prejudices of various parties and sects. A chronological table 
of the events which have transpired since the downfall of Napoleon 
is all that can be attempted. The author contemplates a continu- 
ation of this History, which will present more details, collected 
from original authorities. The history of the different American 
States, since the Revolution ; the administration of the various 
presidents ; the late war with Great Britain ; the Seminole and 
Mexican wars ; the important questions discussed by Congress ; the 
contemporary history of Great Britain under George IV., William 
IV., and Victoria ; the conquests in India and China ; the agitations 
of Ireland ; the great questions of Reform, Catholic Emancipation, 
Education, and Free Trade ; the French wars in Africa ; the Turk- 
ish war ; the independence of the Viceroy of Egypt ; the progress 
of Russian territorial aggrandizement ; the fall of Poland ; the 
Spanish rebellion ; the independence of the South American states ; 
the Dutch and Belgic war ; the two last French revolutions ; the 
great progress made in arts and sciences, and the various attempts 
in different nations to secure liberty ; — these, and other great sub- 
jects, can only be properly discussed in a separate work, and even 
then cannot be handled by any one, however extraordinary his 
talents or attainments, without incurring the imputation of great 
audacity, which only the wants of the public can excuse. 

In concluding the present History, a very brief notice of the 



528 REMARKABLE MEN OF GENIUS. [CHAP. XXXII. 

state of the civilized world at the fall of Napoleon may be, perhaps, 
required. 4 

England suffered less than any other of the great powers from 
the French Revolution. A great burden was, indeed, entailed on 
future generations ; but the increase of the national debt was not 
felt so long as English manufactures were purchased, to a great 
extent, by the Continental States. Six hundred million pounds 
were added to the national debt ; but England, internally, was 
never more flourishing than during this long war of a quarter of a 
century. And not only was glory shed around the British throne 
by the victories of Nelson and Wellington, and the effectual assist- 
ance which England rendered to the continental powers, and with- 
out which the liberties of Europe would have been subverted, but, 
during the reign of George III., a splendid constellation of men of 
genius, in literature and science, illuminated the world. Dr. John- 
son made moral reflections on human life which will ever instruct 
mankind ; Burke uttered prophetic oracles which even his age was 
not prepared to appreciate ; and his rivals thundered in the senate 
with an eloquence and power not surpassed by the orators of 
antiquity ; Gibbon wrote a history which such men as Guizot and 
Milman pronounced wonderful both for art and learning ; Hume, 
Reid, and Stewart, carried metaphysical inquiry to its utmost depth ; 
Gray, Burns, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, 
were not unworthy successors of Dryden and Pope ; Adam Smith 
called into existence the science of political enonomy, and nearly 
brought it to perfection in a single lifetime ; Reynolds and West 
adorned the galleries with pictures which would not have disgraced 
the land of artists ; while scholars, too numerous to mention, aston- 
ished the world by the extent of their erudition ; and divines, in 
language which rivalled the eloquence of Chrysostom or Bossuet, 
declared to an awakened generation the duties and destinies of 
man. 

France, the rival of England, was not probably permanently 
injured by the Revolution ; for, if millions of lives were sacrificed, 
and millions of property were swept away, still important civil 
and social privileges were given to the great mass of the people, 
and odious feudal laws and customs were broken forever. All 
the glory which war can give, was obtained ; and France, for 



CHAP. XXXII.] CONDITION OF GERMANY. 529 

twenty years, was feared and respected. Popular liberty was not 
secured ; but advances- were made towards it, and great moral 
truths were impressed upon the nation, — to be again disregarded, 
but not to be forgotten. The territorial limits of France were not 
permanently enlarged, and the conquests of Napoleon were restored 
to the original rulers. The restoration of the former political 
system was insisted upon by the Holy Alliance, and the Bourbon 
kings, in regaining their throne, again possessed all that their an- 
cestors had enjoyed but the possession of the hearts of the people. 
The allied powers may have restored despotism and legitimacy for 
a while ; they could not eradicate the great ideas of the Revolu- 
tion, and these were destined once more to overturn their thrones. 
The reigns of Louis XVIII. , Charles X., and Louis Philippe were 
but different acts of the long tragedy which was opened by the 
convocation of the States General, and which is not probably 
closed by the election of Prince Louis Napoleon to the presidency 
of the French republic. The ideas which animated La Fayette 
and Moreau, and which Robespierre and Napoleon at one time 
professed, still live, in spite of all the horrors of the Reign of 
Terror, and all the streams of blood which flowed at Leipsic and 
Waterloo. Notwithstanding the suicidal doctrines of Socialists 
and of the various schools of infidel philosophers, and in view of 
all the evils which papal despotism, and democratic license, and 
military passions have inflicted, and will continue to inflict, still 
the immortal principles of liberty are safe Under the protection of 
that Providence which has hitherto advanced the nations of Europe 
from the barbarism and paganism of ancient Teutonic tribes. 

Germany suffered the most, and apparently reaped the least, 
from the storms which revolutionary discussion had raised. Aus- 
tria and Prussia were invaded, pillaged, and humiliated. Their 
cities were sacked, their fields were devastated, and the blood of 
their sons was poured out like water. But sacrifice and suffering 
developed extraordinary virtues and energies, united the various 
states, and gave nationality to a great confederation. The struggles 
of the Germans were honorable and gigantic, and proved to the 
world the impossibility of the conquest of states, however afflicted, 
when they are resolved to defend their rights. The career of 
Napoleon demonstrated the impossibility of a universal empire in 
45 



530 CONDITION OF OTHER POWERS. [CHAP. XXXII. 

Europe, and least of all, an empire erected over the prostrated 
thrones and discomfited armies of Germany. The Germans 
learned the necessity and the duty of union, and proved the 
strength of their sincere love for their native soil and their vener- 
able institutions. The Germans, though poor in gold and silver, 
showed that they were rich in patriotic ardor, and in all those 
glorious sentiments which ennoble a great and progressive nation. 
After twenty years 1 contention, and infinite sacrifices and humilia- 
tions, the different princes of Germany recovered their ancient 
territorial possessions, and were seated, more firmly than before, 
on the thrones which legitimacy had consecrated. 

Absolute monarchy was restored also to Spain ; but the imbecile 
Bourbons, the tools of priests and courtiers, revived the ancient 
principles of absolutism and bigotry, without any of those virtues 
which make absolutism respectable or bigotry endurable. But in 
the breasts of Spanish peasants the fires of liberty burned, which 
all the terrors of priestly rule, and all the evils of priestly corrup- 
tion, could not quench. They, thus far, have been unfortunate ; 
but no person who has studied the elements of the Spanish char- 
acter, or has faith in the providence of God, can doubt that the 
day of deliverance will, sooner or later, come, unless he has the 
misfortune to despair of any permanent triumph of liberty in our 
degenerate world. 

In the northern kingdoms of Europe, no radical change took 
place ; and Italy, the land of artists, so rich in splendid recollec- 
tions, so poor in all those blessings which we are taught to value, 
returned to the dominion of Austria, and to the rule of despotic 
priests. Italy, disunited, abandoned, and enslaved, has made gen- v 
erous efforts to secure what is enjoyed in more favored nations, 
but hitherto in vain. So slow is the progress of society ! so hard 
are the struggles to which man is doomed ! so long continued are 
the efforts of any people to secure important privileges ! 

Greece made, however, a more successful effort, and the fetters 
of the Turkish sultan were shaken off. The Ottoman Porte 
looked, with its accustomed indifference, on the struggles of the 
Christians, and took no active part in the war until absolutely 
forced. But it looked with the indifference of decrepit age, rather 
than with the philosophical calmness of mature strength, and 



CHAP. XXXII.] THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 531 

exerted all the remaining energies it possessed to prevent the 
absorption of the state in the vast and increasing empire of the 
czars. Russia, of all the great powers which embarked in the 
contest to which we have alluded, arose the strongest from defeat 
and disaster. The rapid aggrandizement of Russia immediately- 
succeeded the fall of Napoleon. 

The spiritual empire of the Popes was again restored, and the 
Jesuits, with new powers and privileges, were sent into all the 
nations of the earth to uphold the absolutism of their great head. 
Again they have triumphed when their cause seemed hopeless ; 
nor is it easy to predict the fall of their empire. So long as the 
principle of Evil shall contend with the principle of Good, the 
popes will probably rejoice and weep at alternate victories and 
defeats. 

The United States of America were too far removed from the 
scene of conflict to be much affected by the fall of thrones. More- 
over, it was against the wise policy of the government to interfere 
with foreign quarrels. But the American nation beheld the conflict 
with any feelings but those of indifference, and, while its enlightened 
people speculated on the chances of war, they still devoted them- 
selves with ardor to the improvement of their institutions, to agricul- 
ture, and manufacturing interests. Merchants, for a while, made 
their fortunes by being the masters of the carrying trade of the world, 
and the nation was quietly enriched. The wise administrations of 
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, much as they con- 
flicted, in some respects, with each other, resulted in the growth 
of commerce, manufactures, agriculture, and the arts; while insti- 
tutions of literature and religion took a deep hold of the affections 
of the people. The country increased and spread with unparal- 
leled rapidity on all sides, and the prosperity of America was the 
envy and the admiration of the European world. The encroach- 
ments of Great Britain, and difficulties which had never been 
settled, led to a war between the two countries, which, though 
lamented at the time, is now viewed, by all parties, as resulting in 
the ultimate advancement of the United States in power and 
wealth, as well as in the respect of foreign nations. Great ques- 
tions connected with the rapid growth of the country, unfortunately, 
at different times, have produced acrimonious feelings between 



532 THE UNITED STATES. [CHAP. XXXII. 

different partisans ; but the agitation of these has not cheeked the 
growth of American institutions, or weakened those sentiments of 
patriotism and mutual love, which, in all countries and ages, have 
constituted the glory and defence of nations. The greatness of 
American destinies is now a favorite theme with popular orators. 
Nor is it a vain subject of speculation. Our banner of Liberty 
will doubtless, at no distant day, wave over all the fortresses which 
may be erected on the central mountains of North America, or 
on the shores of its far distant oceans ; but all national aggran- 
dizement will be in vain without regard to those sacred principles 
of law, religion, and morality, for which, in disaster and sorrow, 
both Puritan Settler and Revolutionary Hero contended. The 
believer in Progress, as affected by influences independent of 
man, as coming from the benevolent Providence which thus far 
has shielded us, cannot otherwise than hope for a still loftier 
national elevation than has been yet attained, with all the aid of 
circumstances, and all the energies of heroes. 



APPENDIX. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

PROM THE 

FALL OF NAPOLEON. 

1815. — Battle of Waterloo, (June 18.) Napoleon embarks for St. He- 
lena, (August 7.) Final Treaty at Paris between the Allied Powers, 
(November 20.) Inauguration of the King of Holland. First Steam 
Vessels on the Thames. 

1816. — Great Agricultural distress in Great Britain. Brazil declared a 
Kingdom. Consolidation of the Exchequers of England and Ireland. 
Marriage of the Princess Charlotte with Prince Leopold. 

1817. — Disorders in Spain. Renewal of the Bill for the suspension of 
the Habeas Corpus Act. Inauguration of President Monroe. Death 
of the Princess Charlotte. Death of Curran. 

1818. — Entire "Withdrawal of Foreign Forces from France. Seminole 
War. Great Discussions in Parliament on the Slave Trade. Death 
of Warren Hastings, of Lord Ellenborough, and of Sir Philip Francis. 

1819. — Great depression of Trade and Manufactures in Great Britain. 
Great Reform meetings in Manchester, Leeds, and other large 
Towns. Lord John Russell's Motion for a Reform in Parliament. 
Organized bands of robbers in Spain. Settlement of the Pindarric 
War in India. Assassination of Kotzebue. 

1820. — Death of George HI., (January 23.) Lord Brougham's Plan of 
Popular Education. Proceedings against Queen Caroline. Rebellion 
in Spain. Trial of Sir Francis Burdett. Election of Sir Humphrey 
Davy as President of the Royal Society. Ministry in France of the 
Due de Richelieu. Death of Grattan ; of the Duke of Kent. 

1821. — Second Inauguration of President Monroe. Revolution in Naples 
and Piedmont. Insurrections in Spain. Independence of Colombia, 
and fall of Spanish Power in Mexico and Peru. Disturbances in 
Ireland. War on the Morea. Formal occupation of the Floridas by 
the United States. Extinction of the Mamelukes. Revolt in Walla- 
chia and Moldavia. Death of Queen Caroline ; of Napoleon. 
45* 



534 APPENDIX. 

1822. — Mr. Canning's Bill for the admission of Catholic Peers to the 
House of Lords. Dfsturbances in Ireland. Sir James Mackintosh's 
Motion for a reform of Cr imin al Law. Mr. Canning succeeds the 
Marquis of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh) as Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs. Lord Amherst appointed Governor- General of India. 
Fall of the administration of the Due de Richelieu. Congress of 
Vienna. War in Greece. Insurrection of the Janizaries. The Per- 
sian War. Settlement of the Canadian Boundary. Suicide of the 
Marquis of Londonderry. 

1823. — Great Agricultural Distress in Great Britain. Debates on Cath- 
olic Emancipation, and on the Slave Trade. French Invasion of 
Spain. Captain Franklin's Voyage to the Polar Seas. Death of 
Pius VLL 

1824. — General Prosperity in England. Capture of Ipsara by the Turks. 
Visit of La Fayette to the United States. Leaders of the Carbonari 
suppressed in Italy by the Austrian Government. Bepeal of duties 
between Great Britain and Ireland. Burmese War, and Capture of 
Rangoon. Censorship of the Press in France. Death of Louis XVLTL, 
(September 16.) 

1825. — Inauguration of President Adams. Independence of Brazil ac- 
knowledged by Portugal. Coronation of Charles X. Siege of Mis- 
solonghi. Inundations in the Netherlands. Death of the Emperor 
Alexander, (December 1.) 

1826. — Bolivar chosen President of Peru for Life. Independence of 
Hayti acknowledged by France. Riots in Lancashire. Surrender 
of the fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa to the Mexicans. Great Debates 
in Parliament on the Slave Trade. Death of Ex-President Adams ; 
of Jefferson. Coronation of the Emperor Nicholas. 

1827. — Death of the Earl of Liverpool, and dissolution of the Ministry. 
Mr. Canning appointed First Lord of the Treasury ; dies four months 
after ; succeeded by Lord Goderich. National Guard disbanded in 
France. Defeat of the Greek army before Athens. Battle of Nav- 
arino. Foundation of the University of London. Death of the 
Duke of York ; of La Place ; of Mitford, the Historian ; of Eich- 
horn ; of Pestalozzi ; of Beethoven ; of King Frederic Augustus of 
Saxony. 

1828. — Dissolution of Lord Goderich's Ministry, and new one formed 
under the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Peel, and the Earl of Aberdeen. 
Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. New Corn Law. Riots 
in Ireland. Mr. O'Connell represents the County of Clare. New 
and Liberal ministry in France. Final departure of the French 
Armies from Spain. War between Naples and Tripoli. War between 
Russia and Turkey. Independence of Greece. Death of Ypsilanti. 

1829. — Inauguration of President Jackson. Passage of the Catholic 
Emancipation Bill. New and Ultra-Royalist ministry in France, 



APPENDIX. 535 

under Polignac. Victories of Count Diebitsch against the Turks. 
Surrender of Adrianople. Civil War in Mexico. Don Miguel 
acknowledged as King of Portugal by Spain. Burning of York 
Cathedral. Treaty between the United States and Brazil. Civil 
"War in Chili. Death of Judge Washington. 

1830. — Great discussions in Congress on the Tariff. Reform Agitations 
in England. Death of George IV., (June 26.) New Whig Ministry 
under Earl Grey and Lord John Russell. Opening of the Liverpool 
Railroad. Revolution in France, and Louis Philippe declared King. 
Fall of Algiers. Belgium erected into an independent Kingdom. 
Riots and Insurrections in Germany. Plots of the Carlists in Spain. 
Murder of Joseph White. Death of Pope Leo XII. ; of the King 
of Naples ; of Sir Thomas Lawrence ; of the Grand Duke of Baden. 

1831. — Dissolution of the Cabinet at Washington. Great discussions on 
the Reform Bill. Agitations in Ireland. Leopold made King of 
Belgium. Insurrection in Switzerland. Revolution in Poland. 
Treaty between the United States and Turkey. Coronation of 
William IV. Appearance of the Cholera in England. Its great 
ravages on the Continent. Death of Bolivar ; of Robert Hall ; of 
Mrs. Siddons ; of William Roscoe ; of James Monroe. 

1832. — Veto of President Jackson of the Bill to recharter the United 
States Bank. Discontents in South Carolina, in consequence of the 
Tariff. War with the Indians. Bristol and Birmingham Riots. 
Final passage of the Reform Bill. Abolition of the Slave Trade in 
Brazil. Death of Casimir Perier, Prime Minister of France, who is 
succeeded by Marshal Soult. Death of Sir Walter Scott ; of Sir 
James Mackintosh ; of Spurzheim ; of Cuvier ; of Goethe ; of Cham- 
pollion ; of Adam Clarke; of Andrew Bell ; of Anna Maria porter ; 
of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 

1833. — Second Inauguration of Andrew Jackson. Mr. Clay's Tariff 
Bill. President Jackson's war with the United States Bank. Re- 
charter of the Bank of England and of the East India Company. 
Fortifications of Paris commenced. Santa Anna inaugurated Presi- 
dent of Mexico. Bill passed to abolish slavery in the British Colo- 
nies. Trial of Avery. Death of the King of Spam ; of Mr. Wilber- 
force ; of Hannah More ; of Caspar Hauser; of Lord Grenville ; of 
Dr. Schleiermacher. 

1834. — Discussions on the Corn Laws. Destruction of the two Houses 
of Parliament. Change of Ministry in France. Congress of Vienna. 
Donna Maria acknowledged Queen of Portugal. Opening of the 
Boston and Worcester Railroad. Resignation of Earl Grey, suc- 
ceeded by Lord Melbourne, who is again shortly succeeded by Sir 
Robert Peel. Irish Coercion Bill. Death of La Fayette ; of William 
Wirt ; of Dr. Porter ; of General Huntingdon ; of Coleridge ; of 
Rev. Edward Erving. 



536 APPENDIX. 

1835. — New Ministry of Viscount Melbourne. French expedition to 
Algiers. Otho majje King of Greece. Suppression of the Jesuits in 
Spain. Remarkable eruption of Vesuvius. Revolt in Spain. Great 
fire in New York. Death of the Emperor of Austria ; of Chief 
Justice Marshall ; of Nathan Dane ; of McCrie ; of William Cob- 
bett. 

1836. — Settlement of the disputes between France and the United 
States. Resignation of M. Thiers, who is succeeded, as Prime Min- 
ister of France, by Count Mole. Military operations against Abd-el- 
Kader. Massacre of the Carlist Prisoners at Barcelona. Isturitz 
made Prime Minister of Spain. Prince Louis Napoleon attempts an 
insurrection at Strasburg. Commutation of Tithes in England. 
Bill for the Registration of Births and Marriages. Passage of the 
Irish Municipal Corporation Bill. Agitations in Canada. War be- 
tween Texas and Mexico. Burning of the Patent Office at Wash- 
ington. Death of Aaron Burr ; of the Abbe Sieyes ; of Lord Stow- 
ell ; of Godwin. 

1837- — Inauguration of President Van Buren. Death of William IV., 
(June 20.) Insurrection in Canada. Suspension of cash payments 
by the Bank of the United States in Philadelphia, and by the banks 
in New York. Acknowledgment of the Independence of Texas. 
Treaty with the Indians. Great failures in New York. Great Prot- 
estant Meeting in Dublin. Change of Ministry in Spain. Death of 
Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden ; of M. de Pradt ; of Abiel 
Holmes ; of Dr. Griffin ; of Charles Botta; of Lovejoy. 

1838. — War with the Seminoles. General Scott takes command of the 
New York Militia on the Frontiers. Affair of the Caroline. Lord 
Durham Governor-General of Canada. Coronation of Queen Vic- 
toria ; of the Emperor Ferdinand. Violence of Civil War in Spain. 
Circassian War. Revolution in Peru and Bolivia. Peace between 
Russia and Turkey. Great Chartist meetings in England. Emanci- 
pation of the West India Negro Apprentices. Death of Lord Eldon ; 
of Talleyrand ; of Noah Worcester ; of Dr. Bowditch ; of Zachary 
Macaulay. 

1839. — Disputes between Maine and New Brunswick. Resignation of 
the Melbourne Ministry, and the failure of Sir Robert Peel to con- 
struct a new one. Birmingham Riots. Chartist Convention. Resig- 
nation of Count Mole, who is succeeded, as Prime Minister, by Mar- 
shal Soult, and Guizot. Capture of the fortress of St. Juan d'Ulloa 
by the French. Treaty of Peace between France and Mexico. Aff- 
ghan War. War between Turkey and Mohammed Ali. Invasion 
of Syria. Death of Lady Hester Stanhope ; of Governor Hayne ; of 
Dr. Bancroft ; of Stephen Van Rensselaer ; of Zerah Colburn ; of 
Samuel Ward. 

1840. — Marriage of Queen Victoria. Penny Postage in England. Affghan 



APPENDIX. 537 

War. Difficulties in China respecting the Opium Trade. Blockade 
of Canton. Ministry of M. Thiers. Arrival of Napoleon's Remains 
from St. Helena. Abdication of the King of Holland. Continued 
Civil "War in Spain. Burning of the Lexington. Ministry of Espar- 
tero. Death of Frederic William III. of Prussia ; of Lord Camden ; 
of Dr. Olinthus Gregory ; of Blumenbach ; of Dr. Follen ; of Dr. 
Kirkland ; of John Lowell ; of Judge Mellen ; of Dr. Emmons ; of 
Prof. Davis. 

1841. — Inauguration of President Harrison; his Death; succeeded by 
John Tyler. Trial of McLeod. Repeal of the Sub-Treasury. Veto, 
by the President, of the Bill to establish a Bank. Resignation of the 
Melbourne Ministry, succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel. War in 
Scinde. Espartero sole Regent of Spain. Revolution in Mexico. 
Treaty betAveen Turkey and Egypt. Treaty between the United 
States and Portugal. Death of Chantrey; of Dr. Marsh; of Dr. 
Oliver ; of Dr. Ripley ; of Blanco White ; of William Ladd. 

1842. — Great Debates in Parliament on the Corn Laws. New Tariff of 
Sir Robert Peel. Affghan War. Treaty of Peace between England 
and China. Treaty between England and the United States respect- 
ing the North-eastern Boundary Question. Chartist Petitions. In- 
come Tax. Accident on the Paris and Versailles Railroad. Death 
of the Duke of Orleans; of Lord Hill ; of Dr. Channing ; of Dr. Ar- 
nold ; of Jeremiah Smith. 

1843. — Activity of the Anti Corn Law League. Repeal Agitation in 
Ireland. Monster Meetings. Establishment of the Free Presbyterian 
Church in Scotland. War in Scinde. Sir James Graham's Factory 
Bill. Repudiation of State Debts. Death of Southey; of Dr. 
Ware; of Allston ; of Legare; of Dr. Richards ; of Noah Webster. 

1844. — Corn Law Agitations in Great Britain. Passage of the Sugar 
Duties Bill ; of the Dissenters' Chapel Bill. State Trials in Ireland. 
Opening of the Royal Exchange. Sir Charles Napier's victories in 
India. Louis Philippe's visit to England. War between France and 
Morocco. Disturbances on the Livingston and Rensselaer Manors. 
Insurrection in Mexico. Death of Secretary Upshur. 

1845. — Installation of President Polk. Treaty between the United States 
and China. Great Fire in New York. Municipal disabilities re- 
moved from the Jews by Parliament. War in Algeria. Abdication 
of Don Carlos. Termination of the War in Scinde. Revolution in 
Mexico. War in the Punjaub. 

1846. — War between the United States and Mexico. Battle of Monterey. 
New Tariff Bill. Passage of the Corn Bill in England, and Repeal 
of Duties. Free Trade policy of Sir Robert Peel. Settlement of 
the Oregon Question. Distress in Ireland by the failure of the Po- 
tato Crop. Resignation of Sir Robert Peel ; succeeded by Lord John 
Russell. Marriage of the Queen of Spain ; and of her sister, the 



538 



APPENDIX. 



Infanta, to the Due de Montpensier. Escape of Prince Louis Napo- 
leon from Ham. •'Death of Pope Gregory XVI., and elevation of 
Pius IX. Death of Louis Napoleon, Ex-King of Holland. 

1847. — Splendid military successes of Generals Scott and Taylor in Mex- 
ico. Pall of Mexico. Ravages of the Potato Disease. Awful Dis- 
tress in Ireland. Guizot succeeds Soult as President of the Council. 
Frequent changes of Ministry in Spain. Civil War in Switzerland. 
Grant of a Constitution to Prussia. Liberal Measures of Pius IX. 
Death of the King of Denmark ; of Dr. Chalmers ; of Silas Wright. 

1848. — French Revolution, and Fall of Louis Philippe. Abdication of 
the King of Bavaria. Tumults in Vienna and Berlin. Riots in 
Rome. Chartist demonstrations in London. Election of the Na- 
tional Assembly in France. General fermentation throughout Eu- 
rope. Distress of Ireland. Oregon Territorial Bill. Free Soil 
Convention in Buffalo. Death of John Quincy Adams. Election 
of General Taylor for President of the United States. 



PRIME MINISTERS OF ENGLAND 

SINCE THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. 



KING HENRY VIII. 

1509. Bishop Fisher, and Earl of 
Surrey. 

1513. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. 

1529. Sir Thomas More, and Cran- 
mer. 

1532. Lord Audley, (Chancellor,) 
Archbishop Cranmer. 

1538. Lord Cromwell, (Earl of Es- 
sex.) 

1540. Duke of Norfolk, Earl of 
Surrey, and Bishop Gar- 
diner. 

1544. Lord Wriothesley, Earl of 
Hertford. 

KING EDWARD VI. 
The Earl of Hertford, contin- 
ued. 



1552. John, Duke of Northumber- 

land. 

QUEEN MARY. 

1553. Bishop Gardiner. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

1558. Sir Nicholas Bacon, and Six 
William Cecil, (afterwards 
Lord Burleigh.) 

1564. Earl of Leicester, (a favorite.) 

1588. Earl of Essex. 

1601. Lord Buckhurst. 

JAMES I. 

Lord Buckhurst, (Earl of 
Dorset.) 
1608. Earls of Salisbury, Suffolk, 
and Northampton. 



APPENDIX. 



539 



1612. Sir Robert Carr (Earl of Som- 
erset.) 

1615. Sir George Villiers (Duke of 
Buckingham.) 

CHARLES- I. 

Duke of Buckingham. 

1628. Earl of Portland, Archbishop 

Laud. 
1640. Archbishop Laud, Earl of 
Strafford, Lord Cottington. 

1640. Earl of Essex. 

1641. Lord Falkland, Lord Digby. 

Civil "War, and Oliver Crom- 
well. 

CHARLES II. 
1660. Earl of Clarendon. 
1667. Dukes of Buckingham and 

Lauderdale. 
1667. Lord Ashley, Lord Arlington, 

Lord Clifford. 

1673. Lord Arlington, Lord Ashley 

(Earl of Shaftesbury,) and 
Sir Thomas Osborne. 

1674. Sir Thomas Osborne. 

1677. Earl of Essex, Duke of Or- 
mond, Marquis of Halifax, 
Sir William Temple. 

1682. Duke of York and his friends. 

„ JAMES II. 

1685. Earls of Sunderland andTyr- 
connell, Lord Jeffreys. 

1687. Lord Jeffreys, Lord Arundel, 

Earl of Middleton. 

WILLIAM III. 

1688. Lord Somers, Lord Godol- 

phin, Earl of Danby (Duke 

of Leeds.) 
1695. Earl of Sunderland. 
1697. Charles Montague (Earl of 

Halifax,) Earl of Pem- 



broke, Viscount Lonsdale, 
Earl of Oxford. 

QUEEN ANNE. 

1705. Lord Godolphin, R. Harley, 
Lord Pembroke, Duke of 
Buckingham.Duke of Marl- 
borough. 

1707. Earl Godolphin, Lord Cow- 
per, Dukes of Marlborough 
and Newcastle. 

1710. R. Harley (Earl of Oxford.) 

1710. Earl of Rochester, Lord Dart- 
mouth, Henry St. John 
(Lord Bolingbroke,) Lord 
Harcourt. 

1714. Duke of Shrewsbury. 

GEORGE I. 

1714. Lord Cowper, Duke of 

Shrewsbury, Marquis of 
Wharton, Earl of Oxford, 
Duke of Marlborough, Vis- 
count Townshend. 

1715. Robert Walpole, Esq. 

1717. Earl Stanhope. 

1718. Earl of Sunderland. 

1721. Sir Robert Walpole (Earl of 
Orford.) 

GEORGE II. 

1742. Lord Carteret, Lord Wilming- 

ton, Lord Bath, Mr. San- 
dys, &c. 

1743. Hon. Henry Pelham, Lord 

Carteret, Earl of Har- 
rington, Duke of Newcas- 
tle, &c. 

1746. Mr. Pelham, Earl of Chester- 
field, Duke of Bedford, &c. 

1754. Duke of Newcastle, Sir Thos. 
Robinson, Henry Fox, &c. 

1756. Duke of Devonshire, Mr. 
William Pitt, Earl Temple, 
Hon. H. B. Legge, &c. 



540 



APPENDIX. 



(Dismissed in April, 1757 ; 
restored in June the same 
year.) 
1757. William Pitt, Mr. Legge, Earl 
Temple, Duke of Newcas- 
tle, &c. 

GEORGE III. 

1761. Earl of Bute, Earl of Egre- 

mont, Duke of Bedford, &c. 

1762. Earl of Bute, Hon. George 

Grenville, Sir P. Dash- 
wood, &c. 

1763. Hon. George Grenville, Earl 

of Halifax, Earl of Sand- 
wich, &c. 

1765. Marquis of Rockingham.Duke 

of Grafton, Earl of Shel- 
burne, &c. 

1766. Duke of Grafton, Hon. Chas. 

Townshend, Earl of Chat- 
ham, &c. 

1767. Duke of Grafton, Lord North, 

&c. 
1770. Lord North, Lord Halifax, &c. 
1779. Lord North, Lord Dartmouth, 

Lord Stormont, &c. 
1782. Marquis of Rockingham,Chas. 

James Pox, &c. 

1782. Earl of Shelburne, William 

Pitt, &c. 

1783. Duke of Portland, Lord 

North, Mr. Fox, &c. 
1783. Mr. Pitt, Lord Gower, Lord 

Thurlow, &c. 
1786. Mr. Pitt, Lord Camden, Mar- 
quis of Stafford, &c. 
1790. Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, 

Duke of Leeds. 
1795. Mr. Pitt, Duke of Portland, 

Mr. Dundas, &c. 
1801. Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, 

Duke of Portland, &c. 
1804. Mr. Pitt, Lord Melville, Geo. 

Canning, &c. 



1806. Lord Grenville, Earl Spencer, 

Mr. Fox, &c. 

1807. Duke of Portland, Mr. Can- 

ning, Earl Camden, &c. 
1809. Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liver- 
pool, Marquis Wellesley, 
&c. 

REGENCY OP THE PRINCE OF 
WALES. 
Mr. Perceval, Earl of Liver- 
pool, &e. 
1812. Earl of Liverpool, Viscount 
Castlereagh, Viscount Sid- 
mouth, &c. 

GEORGE IV. 
Earl of Liverpool, &c. 
1827- Rt. Hon. George Canning, 
Lord Goderich, Lord Lynd- 
hurst, &c. 

1827. Viscount Goderich, Duke of 

Portland, Mr. Huskisson, 
&c. 

1828. Duke of Wellington, Rt. Hon. 

Robert Peel, Viscount Mel- 
ville, &c. 
1828. Duke of Wellington, Earl of 
Aberdeen, Sir G. Murray, 
&c. 

WILLIAM IV. 
Duke of Wellington, &c. 

1830. Earl Grey, Viscount Althorpe, 
Melbourne, Goderich, and 
Palmerston, &c. 
(Earl Grey resigns May 9, 
but resumes office May 18.) 

1834:. Viscount Melbourne,Viscount 
Althorpe, Lord John Rus- 
sell, Lord Palmerston, &c. 

1834. Viscount Melbourne's Ad- 
ministration dissolved. The 
Duke of Wellington takes 
the helm of state provis- 
ionally, waiting the return 



APPENDIX. 



541 



of Sir Robert Peel from 
Italy. 

1834. Sir Robert Peel, Duke of 

"Wellington, Lord Lynd- 
hurst, &c. 

1835. Viscount Melbourne and his 

colleagues return to office. 

QUEEN VICTORIA. 

Viscount Melbourne, and the 
same Cabinet. 



1839. Viscount Melbourne resigns, 
May 7. 
Sir Robert Peel fails to form 
an administration. Lord 
Melbourne and friends re- 
instated. 

1841. Sir Robert Peel, Duke of 
Wellington, Earl of Aber- 
deen. 

1846. Lord John Russell, &c. 



TABLE OF THE MONARCHS OF EUROPE 

DURING THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINE- 
TEENTH CENTURIES. 



1509, 
1547. 
1553. 
1558. 
1603. 
1625. 
1653. 
1660. 
1685. 
1688. 
1702. 
1714. 
1727. 
1760. 
1811. 

1820. 
1830. 
1837. 



1515, 



ENGLAND. 

Henry VIII. 
Edward VI. 
Mary. 
Elizabeth. 
James I. 
Charles I. 
Cromwell. 
Charles LT. 
James II. 
William & Mary. 
Anne. 
George I. 
George II. 
George HI. 
Prince of Wales, 

(Regent.) 
George IV. 
William IV. 
Victoria. 

FRANCE. 
Francis I. 



1547. 
1559. 
1560. 
1574. 
1589. 
1610. 
1643. 
1715. 
1774. 
1789. 
1792. 
1795. 
1799. 
1802. 

1804. 
1815. 
1825. 
1830. 



1493. 
1519. 

46 



Henry II. 
Prancis II. 
Charles IX. 
Henry III. 
Henry IV. 
Louis XIII. 
Louis XIV. 
Louis XV. 
Louis XVI. 
Revolution. 
Republic. 
Directory. 
Consuls. 
Napoleon 
Consul. 
Napoleon Emp'r. 
Louis XVHI. 
Charles X. 
Louis Philippe. 

GERMANY. 
Maximilian. 
Charles V. 



First 



1558. Ferdinand I. 
1564. Maximilian H. 
1576. RodolphH. 
1612. Matthias. 
161.9. Ferdinand n. 
1637. Ferdinand HI. 
1658. Leopold I. 
1705. Joseph I. 
1711. Charles VI. 
1742. Charles VH. 
1745. Francis & Maria 

Theresa. 
1765. Joseph H. 
1790. Leopold H. 
1792. Francis H. 

EMPERORS OF AUS- 
TRIA. 

1804. Francis. 
1835. Ferdinand I. 

SPAIN. 
1516. Charles I. 
1556. Philip H. 



542 



APPENDIX. 



1598. Philip m. 
1621. Philip IV. 
1665. Charles II. 
1700. Philip V. 

1724. Louis. 

1725. Philip V. 
1746. Ferdinand VI. 
1759. Charles HI. 
1788. Charles IV- 
1808. Ferdinand VII. 
1808. Jos. Bonaparte. 
1814. Ferdinand VII. 
1820. Revolution. 
1833. Isabella II. 



1523. 
1560, 
1568, 
1592, 
1599, 
1611. 
1632, 
1654, 
1660, 
1697, 
1718, 
1751, 

1771, 
1792, 
1809, 
1810. 



1513. 
1523. 
1534. 
1559. 
1588. 
1648. 
1670. 
1699. 
1730. 



SWEDEN. 

Gustavus II.. 
Erick XVI. 
John in. 
Sigismund. 
Charles LX. 
Gust. Adolphus. 
Christina. 
Charles X. 
Charles XI. 
Charles XII. 
Ulrica Leonora. 
Adolphus Fred- 
eric. 
Gustavus HJ. 
Gtistavus IV. 
Charles XIII. 
Bernadotte. 

DENB1ARK. 

Christian LT. 
Frederic I. 
Christian III. 
Frederic II. 
Christian IV. 
Frederic III. 
Christian V. 
Frederic IV. 
Christian VL 



1746. Frederic V. 
1766. Christian VII. 
1784. Regency. 
1808. Frederic VI. 
1839. Christian VEIL 



1696. 
1725. 
1727. 
1730. 
1741. 
1761. 
1762. 
1796. 
1801. 
1825. 



RUSSIA. 

Peter the Great. 
Catharine I. 
Peter II. 
Ivan. 
Elizabeth. 
Peter in. 
Catharine II. 
Paul I. 
Alexander. 
Nicholas. 



PRUSSIA. 

1700. Frederic. 
1713. Frederic Win. 
1740. Frederic II. 
1786. Frederic Wm. II. 
1796. Fred. Wm. HE. 
1840. Fred. Wm. IV. 



1512. 
1520. 
1566. 
1574. 
1595. 
1604. 
1617. 
1618. 
1622. 
1623. 
1640. 
1655. 
1687. 
1691. 
1695. 
1703. 



Selim. 
Solyman. 
Selim II. 
Amurath III. 
Mohammed III. 
Achmet I. 
Mustapha I. 
Othman II. 
Mustapha II. 
Amurath IV. 
Lbrahim. 
Mohammed IV. 
Solyman II. 
Achmet II. 
Mustapha III. 
Achmet III. 



1730. Mohammed V. 
1757. Achmet IV. 
1789. Selim HI. 

1807. Mustapha IV. 

1808. Mohammed VI. 
1819. Abdul Medjid. 



1513. 
1522. 
1523. 
1534. 
1550. 
1555. 
1555. 
1559. 
1566. 
1572. 
1585. 
1590. 
1590. 
1591. 
1592. 
1605. 
1623. 
1644. 
1655. 
1667. 
1670. 
1676. 
1689. 
1691. 
1700. 
1721. 
1724. 
1730. 
1740. 
1758. 
1769. 
1775. 
1800. 
1823. 
1831. 
1847. 



POPES. 
LeoX. 
Adrian VI. 
Clement VII. 
Paul III. 
Julius III. 
Marcellus LTI. 
Paul IV. 
Pius rv. 
Pius V. 
Gregory XIII. 
Sixtus V. 
Gregory XTV. 
Gregory XV. 
Innocent IX. 
Clement VOL 
Leo XI. 
"Urban VLTI. 
Innocent X. 
Alexander VII. 
Clement IX. 
Clement X. 
Innocent XL 
Alexander VIII. 
Innocent XII. 
Clement XL 
Innocent XIII. 
Benedict XIII. 
Clement XII. 
Benedict XIV. 
Clement XIII. 
Clement XIV. 
Pius VI. 
Pius VII. 
Leo XII. 
Gregory XVI. 
Pius IX. 



APPENDIX. 



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